The Age of Imperialism
Discover the Age of Imperialism — the era when European powers carved up Africa and Asia, dominating 84% of the world's land by 1914.
The Age of Imperialism (c. 1870–1914) was the period of accelerated European colonial expansion in which industrialized nations competed to establish control over Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. By 1914, European powers and their offshoots controlled roughly 84% of the world's land surface.
This 'New Imperialism' was driven by industrial capitalism's need for raw materials and markets, the strategic competition between European powers, technological superiority in weapons and communications, and racist ideologies that provided moral justification for conquest. The Scramble for Africa, the Great Game in Central Asia, and the carving of China into spheres of influence were its most dramatic manifestations.
The Age of Imperialism created the political geography of the modern world, drawing borders that persist today across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. It also generated the anti-colonial movements that would dismantle the European empires in the 20th century, as colonized peoples turned the imperial powers' own ideals of liberty and self-determination against them.
Lessons covering this topic
Browse all lessons →The Scramble for Africa
The Berlin Conference and the partition of a continent.
Imperialism in Asia
The Great Game and the colonization of the East.
The Opium Wars & Meiji Japan
China's humiliation and Japan's transformation.