THE WORLD ATLAS

Chapter · Age of Imperialism

Steam, Rail and Empire

The world in 1880

By 1880 railways, steamships and the telegraph have shrunk the world, and the industrial nations of Europe and North America are pulling far ahead of everyone else. Queen Victoria's Britain is the workshop of the world and the greatest empire, its rule in India now formalised in the British Raj.

Germany, united in 1871 under Kaiser Wilhelm I and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, is the strongest land power in Europe, while France rebuilds as a republic after its defeat. Russia is pushing deep into Central Asia, and the United States, healed from its Civil War, is filling the continent with railways, farms and immigrants. Africa's interior is still largely self-governed, but explorers and traders are paving the way for a European 'Scramble for Africa' that will soon carve up the continent. In East Asia, Meiji Japan is modernising at breakneck speed, while Qing China struggles to reform. Wars rage in Afghanistan, South America and southern Africa, and electric light and the telephone are brand-new wonders.

Open the map in 1880

The great powers

Region by region

Southern Africa

Britain rules the Cape Colony and Natal, defeated the Zulu kingdom of Cetshwayo in 1879, and annexed the Boer republic of Transvaal in 1877; in December 1880 the Transvaal Boers rose in revolt, starting the First Boer War. The Orange Free State, under President Johannes Brand, remains independent. Portugal holds coastal Angola and Mozambique, Sultan Barghash rules Zanzibar and the Swahili coast, and in Madagascar the Merina monarchy rules under Queen Ranavalona II and her prime minister Rainilaiarivony. In the Congo basin, Henry Morton Stanley is setting up trading stations for King Leopold II of Belgium.

Northern Africa

Egypt, under Khedive Tewfik, is deep in debt and under Anglo-French financial control; it also rules the Sudan, where a religious leader will soon proclaim himself the Mahdi. France has ruled Algeria since 1830 and will make Tunisia a protectorate in 1881, while Sultan Hassan I keeps Morocco independent. Emperor Yohannes IV rules Ethiopia, and West Africa is still dominated by African states such as the Sokoto Caliphate, the Tukulor Empire of Ahmadu Tall and Samori Ture's growing Wassoulou empire. Britain holds the Gold Coast and Lagos, France holds Senegal, and Liberia is independent.

Europe

The Congress of Berlin (1878) has rearranged the Balkans: Romania, Serbia and Montenegro are fully independent, Bulgaria is autonomous, and Austria-Hungary occupies Bosnia. Kaiser Wilhelm I and Bismarck rule the German Empire and have just allied with Emperor Franz Joseph's Austria-Hungary (1879). Queen Victoria reigns in Britain, where Gladstone has just returned as prime minister; France is a republic under President Jules Grevy; and Tsar Alexander II rules Russia, where revolutionaries are hunting him. Italy, united under King Umberto I, and Spain, under Alfonso XII, are second-rank powers.

Middle East & South Asia

Sultan Abdul Hamid II rules a shrunken Ottoman Empire after losing much of the Balkans to Russia, and Britain has taken Cyprus. Persia is ruled by Naser al-Din Shah Qajar. In the Second Anglo-Afghan War, the British were defeated at Maiwand but relieved Kandahar, and they recognised Abdur Rahman Khan as amir in 1880. Queen Victoria became Empress of India in 1877; the British Raj, under Viceroy Lord Ripon from June 1880, rules about three-fifths of the subcontinent directly and the rest through hundreds of princely states. In central Arabia the Rashidi emirs of Ha'il are the strongest power.

Northern & Central Asia

Russia has swept south into Central Asia, taking Tashkent (1865), Samarkand (1868) and the khanate of Kokand (1876), all governed as Russian Turkestan under Governor-General Konstantin von Kaufman. The emirate of Bukhara and the khanate of Khiva survive as Russian protectorates, and a campaign against the Turkmen is under way, culminating at Geok Tepe in January 1881. Siberia is ruled from St Petersburg and is a vast land of exiles, convicts and fur trappers, still awaiting its railway.

East Asia

The Qing dynasty rules China under the child Guangxu Emperor, with the Empress Dowager Cixi holding real power; the 'Self-Strengthening' movement is building arsenals and steamships, and Zuo Zongtang has just reconquered Xinjiang. Meiji Japan is transforming itself into a modern state with railways, a conscript army and a new aristocracy, and annexed the Ryukyu Islands as Okinawa in 1879. Korea, under King Gojong, has been forced open by a Japanese treaty (1876), and Tibet is governed in the name of the young 13th Dalai Lama under loose Qing oversight.

Southeast Asia

Siam, under the reforming King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), remains independent. Britain rules Lower Burma, while King Thibaw rules Upper Burma from Mandalay; France holds Cochinchina in southern Vietnam and a protectorate over Cambodia, while the Nguyen emperor Tu Duc still rules the rest of Vietnam. The Dutch control much of the East Indies but are fighting a long war in Aceh; Spain rules the Philippines, Britain is extending control over the Malay states, and the Brooke family rules Sarawak as 'White Rajahs'.

Northern North America

The Dominion of Canada, formed in 1867 and led by Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, now stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific after acquiring Rupert's Land and British Columbia; on 1 September 1880 Britain transferred its Arctic islands to Canada. The transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway is about to begin construction. Newfoundland remains a separate British colony, the United States has owned Alaska since 1867, and Denmark rules Greenland.

Southern North America

The United States, under President Rutherford B. Hayes, has 38 states; Reconstruction of the South ended in 1877, and James Garfield won the November 1880 election. Railways, mass immigration and the final wars against the Plains peoples are transforming the West. Mexico is entering the long era of Porfirio Diaz, whose ally Manuel Gonzalez took office as president in December 1880. Spain still rules Puerto Rico and Cuba, where a ten-year independence war ended in 1878.

Northern South America

Brazil is an empire under Emperor Pedro II, a constitutional monarchy built on coffee and still on slave labour. On the Pacific coast, the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) pits Chile against Peru and Bolivia; Chile has seized Bolivia's coastline and Peru's nitrate province of Tarapaca and is advancing on Lima. Colombia (then the United States of Colombia, including Panama) elected Rafael Nunez in 1880, and Antonio Guzman Blanco dominates Venezuela. Britain, the Netherlands and France hold the three Guianas.

Southern Cone

Argentina, under President Julio Argentino Roca from October 1880, has just carried out the main campaign of the 'Conquest of the Desert' that seized the Pampas and northern Patagonia from Indigenous peoples, and Buenos Aires has been made the federal capital. Chile, under President Anibal Pinto, is winning the War of the Pacific and is also pushing into Mapuche lands in the south. Paraguay is still devastated by its defeat in the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870), and Uruguay is ruled by military-backed presidents.

Australasia & Oceania

Australia is six separate self-governing British colonies, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, enriched by gold and wool; the bushranger Ned Kelly was captured and hanged in 1880. New Zealand is a British colony whose wars with the Maori ended in 1872, with large areas of Maori land confiscated. Fiji became a British colony in 1874, France annexed Tahiti in 1880, King Kalakaua rules Hawaii, and eastern New Guinea is still unclaimed by Europeans.

Events

  1. Suez Canal opens; first US transcontinental railroad completed
  2. German Empire proclaimed at Versailles after the defeat of France
  3. Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India
  4. Congress of Berlin redraws the Balkans after the Russo-Turkish War
  5. Anglo-Zulu War; War of the Pacific begins; Edison demonstrates a practical light bulb
  6. British defeated at Maiwand in the Second Anglo-Afghan War; Abdur Rahman becomes amir
  7. Transvaal Boers revolt against Britain, starting the First Boer War

Moments of this period

Wars of this period

More chapters

Sources