Question

What were the 7 European countries that colonised 114 countries?

Answer 1

The era of European Colonization began has a complex history, and does need to be understood in context.

Explanation:

The age of European colonization was not -- at first -- a deliberate decision, and the usual driver (at first) was trade.

Portugal began the age of European exploration in the 1450s by trying to find a way around Africa to directly access the spices of Southeast Asia without paying the heavy taxes and tarrifs demanded by Muslim/Turkish middlemen. Ships needed water and firewood, and so bases were needed along the coast of Africa... and there were gold, ivory and slaves for European goods. Bases slowly expanded into the first colonies, as forts and farms proved necessary to keep a foothold.

Spain followed suit, and soon their turbulent veterans of the long wars with the Muslims could carve out new wealth in the Caribbean, then from the Aztecs and the Incas. It was almost too easy .

The British seemed first driven by the need for shore bases to support the lucrative cod fisheries off Newfoundland in 1497. One hundred years later, Englishmen looked to the success of the Spanish colonies and started to colonize Eastern North America. The French -- rivals to the English -- also looked for a way through the Americas and found the fur trade to be very lucrative for them.

By 1600, the Dutch and the British had found their way to India and South East Asia and began with fortified trading stations which slowly grew from there. Sweden and Scotland recognized that colonization was becoming a money maker and made their efforts to find lodgements in the New World... both foundered and were absorbed by others.

Russia made its way across Siberia by 1600 -- but the vast distances involved limited their presence in the North Pacific until the 1700s, when they started some trading posts in Alaska. Russia was more concerned with stabilizing its frontiers with the Muslim world in Asia.

By the late 19th Century, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Japan made their bids to create colonies -- partly as an instrument of national prestige. The United States, more or less accidentally, found themselves in possession of some Spanish colonies after the Spanish American War, and some German possessions in the Pacific after WW-1.