31 January 2010

Empires come and empires go

And speaking of empires, while reading recently about the settlement of the Americas, I kept bumping into the Portugese.  Their empire was the first to span the globe, and it lasted for over 500 years, longer than that of any other European nation.

The map above entitled "Portugal Is Not a Small Country," was created for internal Portugese reasons, after the loss of Brazil, to show that the remaining hegemony was still substantial. 

Found at Strange Maps.  Posted for the Oregon Expat.

1 comment:

  1. FletcherJanuary 31, 2010 at 4:17 PM

    The Oregon Expat loves the map! I didn't realize that Angola (or Mozambique, for that matter) were quite so large. Very interesting comparison.

    You may have already picked up on this fact as well, but Portugal was the last European nation to leave Africa. It cut ties with its African colonies immediately after the 1974 Carnation Revolution (one of the few bloodless revolutions in all of European history).

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