Talk:Timeline of national independence

Untitled Section #1
I'm not sure what "inter-war" and "cold-war" refer to, in terms of exact dates. I can guess but I'm from a country which didn't have any wars after independence and wasn't aligned with any cold war powers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.249.193.193 (talk) 08:09, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

States with limited recognition
If we are presuming that states with limited recognition generally belong in this list (with a few exceptions), then entries about Abkhazia, Artsakh, South Ossetia, and Transnistria should probably be added to the article. The main exceptions are Crimea, Kherson Oblast, and Zaporizhzhia Oblast, because these entities were annexed by Russia almost immediately after declaring independence from Ukraine and hence never exercised any form of ostensible self-rule. (i.e. I presume that we only care about entities that actually rule/d themselves for a considerable length of time). Jargo Nautilus (talk) 17:12, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Sovereign states vs subnational entities
I would have thought that this was obvious, but it does seem that the article doesn't clarify its scope very accurately. I have already removed Hong Kong, Macau, and Sikkim from the list since they are not countries at the present time (Sikkim historically was a country), and they are instead subnational entities. According to a Chinese nationalist perspective, it could be argued that Hong Kong and Macau were "parts of China" that became independent from European colonial rule; alternatively, it can be interpreted that Hong Kong and Macau function as de facto independent states even though they are officially under Chinese sovereignty. Meanwhile, from an Indian nationalist perspective, it could be argued that Sikkim "became independent from itself" in 1975 after the "authoritarian" Sikkim kingdom was overthrown and replaced by the Indian "State of Sikkim" administration (obviously, this is propaganda, hence why I have specified "nationalist"). In the situation of the Panama Canal, it is somewhat similar; the Panama Canal isn't a country in its own right, so I don't see how it "declared national independence", unless you are counting it as a subregion of Panama in the wider Panamanian struggle for independence (again, nationalism). It's also interesting to note that there are multiple entries for several countries where the independence occurred in stages, such as Australia, which became independent from the United Kingdom in 1900 but still remained under United Kingdom suzerainty (partial sovereignty) until 1986 (allegedly; I myself am not an expert on the topic, even though I am Australian). Jargo Nautilus (talk) 17:12, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

List of entities that I (JN) have removed from the list
— Jargo Nautilus (talk) 18:55, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hong Kong
 * Reason: Not a country, never a country in the past. Simply a part of the People's Republic of China, albeit with an unusually high degree of autonomy.
 * Macau
 * Reason: Not a country, never a country in the past. Simply a part of the People's Republic of China, albeit with an unusually high degree of autonomy.
 * Republic of Crimea (2014 state) (replaced by a sentence in the event section of the Donetsk PR/Luhansk PR)
 * Reason: It never exercised genuine self-rule. It lasted nominally for five days (internationally regarded as a Russian military occupation of Crimea throughout that period).
 * Sikkim (Kingdom of Sikkim)
 * Reason: This is the most egregious example by far of what to not put in this list. The Kingdom of Sikkim was literally an independent country for hundreds of years before being forcefully annexed by India. The Indian state of Sikkim had been included in the list apparently alongside a theme of Indian subregions that had been acquired by India after a period of foreign occupation/colonisation, such as Goa. However, in the situation of Sikkim, it was never a foreign colony, but rather an independent sovereign state in South Asia in its own right, not unlike Nepal and Bhutan. So, there was absolutely zero justification for including this entity.
 * Panama Canal
 * Reason: Not a country, but merely a part of Panama.
 * Suez Canal
 * Reason: Not a country, but merely a part of Egypt.
 * Western New Guinea
 * Reason: It never became independent. With that being said, it was temporarily administered by the United Nations for a few months in 1962–1963.
 * Chandannagar, Pondicherry, Goa, Daman and Diu
 * Reason: Not countries, never countries in the past. Simply parts of India.
 * Dominion of Newfoundland
 * Reason: The original entity was about Newfoundland joining Canada, which is inappropriate for this list. However, it might be good to include an article about Newfoundland seceding from the United Kingdom in the first place, before joining Canada (this isn't in the article yet).
 * Various duplicated entries for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa
 * Reason: We don't need to list every single act or decree that made these four countries 1% more independent from the United Kingdom than they already are. This information is redundant, already mentioned in the first entries for each respective country.
 * Republic of West Florida and East Florida
 * Reason: American puppet states that never exercised genuine self-rule. Annexed by America from Spain over the course of a few months.
 * Mosquito Coast
 * Reason: Part of Nicaragua. Never truly independent, although autonomous for a considerable length of time, and based around the Miskitu nation.
 * Ionian Islands
 * Reason: Never independent. Part of Greece, previously part of various other countries.
 * Weihai
 * Reason: Never independent. Part of China.
 * People's Republic of China
 * Reason: This is the second most egregious example after Sikkim. The PRC, which is the current internationally-recognized regime of China (aside from the Republic of China on Taiwan), did not declare independence from itself. The idea that China declared independence from China is ridiculous. Zero justification for including the PRC in the list, even when considering the dispute between the PRC and the ROC as the legitimate government of China.
 * Mengjiang and Manchuria (Manchukuo)
 * Reason: They were Japanese puppet states in China. Japan never managed to occupy the entirety of China.
 * Indonesia independence from Japan
 * Reason: Condensed into the Indonesian independence from the Netherlands, which occurred two days later. The two events may as well be regarded as one event, based on how closely together they occurred and on how closely related they are.
 * North Korea and South Korea
 * Reason: I have condensed the information into the original Korean liberation from Japan in 1945. The establishments of North Korea and South Korea in 1948 were not declarations of independence, unless you regard the Soviet Union and the United States as the countries that they were declaring independence from (but really, neither of those two countries intended to stay in Korea forever; they were always planning to leave in the near future).
 * Eritrea's transfer from the United Kingdom to Ethiopia
 * Reason: Inappropriate for the list. This act didn't cause Eritrea to become an independent country. Eritrea's actual independence came much later, in 1993.
 * Kingdom of Poland (1917–1918) (replaced by the Second Polish Republic)
 * Reason: It was a German client/puppet state. On the other hand, the Second Polish Republic was internationally recognized, having been established two years later.

List of entities that I (JN) have added to the list
— Jargo Nautilus (talk) 18:55, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Kherson Oblast and Zaporizhzhia Oblast (briefly added and then removed, replaced by a sentence in the event section of the Donetsk PR/Luhansk PR)
 * Note: I didn't intend to add these, although I briefly added them early into my edits. They never truly exercised self-rule, similarly to the Republic of Crimea. They only nominally existed as Russian puppet states for less than a day.
 * Transcaucasian Democratic Federal Republic (together with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia)
 * Reason: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia initially declared independence from the Russian Empire as a federation, before it broke apart a month later.
 * Second Polish Republic (replacing Kingdom of Poland (1917–1918)
 * Reason: The Second Polish Republic was internationally recognized as the first truly independent Polish Republic in over 100 years after Germany recognized its independence in the Treaty of Versailles.

Origin of this article
It previously escaped me how this article originally came into being. As it turns out, a quick skim of the history of this article reveals that it was only created approximately one year ago as a SPLIT from the article "decolonization". This article was originally a subsection of that article titled "Timeline of independence" (which, notably, is a bit different from "Timeline of national independence"). This background information explains why this article was so poorly constructed when I began editing it heavily some days ago. The article was already in disarray at its original location, which was the reason that it was split out from its original article in the first place. Jargo Nautilus (talk) 09:53, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

This page needs a major overhaul
This list is a very good idea in theory but there's a number of issues with it. I may try and make these edits myself but I want to have the matter here first so people can give feedback on my ideas before I can put them in place.

First off, I think this list should only cover currently extant de facto sovereign states, not ones that have since ceased to exist, since though including now-former states isn't a bad idea, it also complicates matters immensely, both from the number of countries that would need to be added, and from having to assess every single one to decide if they qualify for the list (ie; if they actually gained independence from another country, rather than forming another way such as the uniting of two previously existing countries). The information pertaining to the founding of these countries (such as the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Gran Colombia, Central America, and Texas) would be much better suited for the appropriate "Timeline of geopolitical changes" articles.

Secondly, some of these dates given definitely do not count as the country's independence. For example, Canada is given as 1848, a full 19 years before the 1867 Confederation usually cited as the "start" of Canada as its own country. The granting of self-government is not the same as independence, otherwise we would have to include places like Greenland or Puerto Rico that are largely autonomous but still under the sovereignty of another entity. Other examples like this include Cuba and the Philippines in 1898 (transfer to US sovereignty is certainly not independence.); Australia in 1900, a year before Australia even existed as a single entity; Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine in 1920 (same issue as Cuba/Philippines); Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in 1940 (again, like the ex-Spanish islands), Iceland in 1944 (It was already independent since 1918, the referendum just ended the personal union with Denmark), Oman 1970; Tonga 1971 (The UK's relation with Oman and Tonga was more one of alliance or satellite status than a protectorate as I understand it, their independence was never really interrupted.)

Another similar matter is with countries like Serbia and Montenegro in 1852 and Romania in 1877, where the countries already existed as separate entites, just nominally as vassals to another state, in this case the Ottomans. Though they weren't fully, totally independent, they were still separate countries from the Ottoman state, and I would count their establishment as being when these countries were separated from the Ottoman state, not when they were relieved of vassalage to the Porte. (not to mention the Ottoman vassalage of Montenegro was very tenuous as I understand it.)

There's also some strange choices for giving the countries that a state gained independence from. The three countries to emerge from the Pacific Trust Territory is a great example, with the Empire of Japan given as well as the United States, even though at that point, Japan hadn't exercised control over these islands for more than 40 years, and relinquished them at the end of WWII. The same goes for Palestine in 1994, when Jordan had no control over West Bank at the time, the UK hadn't been in the area for decades, and Egypt doesn't even factor in since Gaza remained under Israeli control for another 11 years. Portugal listed for East Timor 2002 and the SFR Yugoslavia for the dissolution of the Serbia-Montenegro Union are some other out of place ones.

Finally there's the matter of countries with multiple dates of independence. This is definitely a very iffy topic with how complicated it can be, but I think that if an extant country is a resumption of a former period of independence, both can be counted. The Dominican Republic is a good example, I think it would make sense to include both its 1844 independence from Haiti and 1865 independence from Spain. (There's also the question of the 1821 declaration of independence from Spain, but that's iffy if it counts owing to it not having much in common with the 1844 and 1865 states other than location, and one of the reasons this last point is so complicated since defining what does and doesn't count as a resumption of a previously abolished state is kind of nebulous, for example, can modern Montenegro be considered the successor to the 1516-1918 the Prince-Bishopric/Tsardom/Principality/Kingdom of Montenegro, meaning the establishment of both would be included, or would only the 2006 date be used?). Regardless, if we can establish multiple "for sure" dates for a country, both should be included.

That about sums up my concerns. I'll leave this here for maybe a week before I start making alterations so if someone thinks I'm crazy and my ideas are awful they can say so. Crazy Boris (talk) 01:01, 20 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your work on this article. I do like the idea of only including currently-existing countries as otherwise the list would never achieve completeness. Mottezen (talk) 15:19, 28 April 2024 (UTC)