THE WORLD ATLAS

Chapter · Age of Globalization

Pandemic and War

The world in 2020

A new coronavirus, first identified in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, spreads around the world in early 2020. The World Health Organization declares COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March; billions of people live under lockdowns, borders close, and the world economy suffers its worst recession since the Second World War.

Vaccines developed at record speed are first given in December 2020. More than 7 million deaths are officially reported, and the WHO estimates that almost 15 million more people than usual died in 2020 and 2021 alone. The years to 2024 bring further shocks. The Taliban retake Afghanistan in 2021. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 starts the largest war in Europe since 1945 and drives up energy and food prices worldwide. A Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 is followed by a devastating war in Gaza, and in December 2024 Syria's Bashar al-Assad is overthrown. The world's population passes eight billion in November 2022, and India overtakes China as the most populous country in 2023. Artificial-intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT (2022) spread fast, rivalry between the United States and China sharpens, and 2024 is the warmest year on record.

Open the map in 2020

The great powers

Region by region

Southern Africa

South Africa, under Cyril Ramaphosa, imposes one of the world's strictest lockdowns, and its scientists detect the Beta variant of the virus in 2020 and help identify Omicron in 2021. In 2024 the ANC loses the parliamentary majority it has held since 1994 and forms a coalition government. In the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the M23 rebels, which UN experts say are backed by Rwanda, launch a new offensive in 2022, and an Islamist insurgency in northern Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province draws in Rwandan troops in 2021. Samia Suluhu Hassan becomes Tanzania's first woman president after John Magufuli's death in 2021, and Kenya elects William Ruto in 2022.

Northern Africa

In November 2020 war breaks out between Ethiopia's government, led by Abiy Ahmed, and the leaders of its Tigray region; by some estimates hundreds of thousands die before a peace deal is signed in Pretoria in November 2022. Sudan's transition after Omar al-Bashir's fall is ended by a coup in 2021, and in April 2023 war erupts between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, driving over ten million people from their homes. A wave of military coups sweeps the Sahel, in Mali (2020 and 2021), Guinea (2021), Burkina Faso (twice in 2022) and Niger (2023); the juntas of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger send French troops home and form the Alliance of Sahel States. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi rules Egypt, Tunisia's President Kais Saied suspends parliament in 2021, and in September 2023 an earthquake kills nearly 3,000 people in Morocco and floods devastate Derna in Libya.

Europe

Italy is Europe's first coronavirus hotspot, and lockdowns spread across the continent; in July 2020 EU leaders agree a €750 billion recovery fund. Britain leaves the European Union on 31 January 2020. On 24 February 2022 Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014, launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine; Ukrainian forces under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy drive the invaders back from Kyiv, but fighting grinds on in the east and south, and millions of Ukrainians flee abroad. Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024) join NATO. In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko crushes mass protests after a disputed 2020 election, and Azerbaijan regains much of Nagorno-Karabakh in a 2020 war and the rest in 2023, when almost all its Armenian population flees. Olaf Scholz succeeds Angela Merkel in Germany in 2021, Emmanuel Macron leads France, Britain has four prime ministers from Boris Johnson to Keir Starmer, and Queen Elizabeth II dies in September 2022.

Middle East & South Asia

India, under Narendra Modi, suffers a devastating wave of the Delta variant in 2021, clashes with Chinese troops in the Galwan valley in 2020, lands a probe near the Moon's south pole in 2023, and in 2024 returns Modi for a third term at the head of a coalition. As US troops withdraw, the Taliban take Kabul on 15 August 2021. Floods put huge areas of Pakistan under water in 2022, economic collapse forces Sri Lanka's president from office the same year, and Bangladesh's Sheikh Hasina resigns and flees in August 2024 after student-led protests. In 2020 the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain establish relations with Israel. On 7 October 2023 a Hamas-led attack kills about 1,200 people in Israel and takes some 250 hostages; Israel's offensive in Gaza kills more than 40,000 Palestinians by late 2024, according to Gaza's health ministry, and fighting spreads to Lebanon and the Red Sea. Mass protests follow the death of Mahsa Amini in Iranian police custody in 2022, an earthquake kills more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria in February 2023, and Syria's Bashar al-Assad is overthrown in December 2024.

Northern & Central Asia

In Kyrgyzstan, protests after a disputed election in October 2020 bring Sadyr Japarov to power. In January 2022, deadly unrest in Kazakhstan leads President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to call in troops from a Russian-led alliance and to remove his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev from his remaining post. Turkmenistan's Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow hands the presidency to his son Serdar in 2022, Shavkat Mirziyoyev leads Uzbekistan, and Emomali Rahmon's Tajikistan fights deadly border clashes with Kyrgyzstan in 2021 and 2022. When Russia orders a military call-up in September 2022, hundreds of thousands of Russian men leave the country, many crossing into Kazakhstan.

East Asia

China, under Xi Jinping, seals off Wuhan and then pursues a 'zero-COVID' policy of mass testing and lockdowns until it is abruptly dropped in December 2022, after rare street protests. A national security law imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 ends its protest movement, and Xi begins a third term as Communist Party leader in 2022. Taiwan, led by Tsai Ing-wen and from 2024 by Lai Ching-te, faces large Chinese military exercises. Japan, under Emperor Naruhito, holds the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021; Prime Minister Abe Shinzo resigns in 2020 and is assassinated in 2022. North Korea's Kim Jong Un seals his borders and steps up missile tests, and in December 2024 South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol briefly declares martial law and is impeached.

Southeast Asia

In Myanmar the army seizes power on 1 February 2021 and detains Aung San Suu Kyi; its crackdown on protests turns into a civil war in which armed resistance groups make large gains from late 2023. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the former dictator, is elected president of the Philippines in 2022, succeeding Rodrigo Duterte. Indonesia's Joko Widodo, who begins building a new capital, Nusantara, on Borneo, is followed by Prabowo Subianto, elected in 2024. Thailand sees youth-led protests in 2020, and Anwar Ibrahim becomes Malaysia's prime minister in 2022 after years of political turmoil.

Northern North America

Canada, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is shaken in 2021 by the discovery of possible unmarked graves at former residential schools for Indigenous children. Truckers protesting vaccine rules blockade Ottawa and border crossings in early 2022, and in 2023 wildfires burn a larger area than in any season on record. Greenland, self-governing within Denmark, draws growing interest as melting Arctic ice opens sea routes and access to minerals, and its 2021 election is fought over a planned rare-earth and uranium mine.

Southern North America

The United States records more than a million COVID-19 deaths, the most of any country. The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 sparks nationwide protests, Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump in November 2020, and Trump's supporters storm the US Capitol on 6 January 2021; in November 2024 Trump is elected again. Mexico elects Claudia Sheinbaum as its first woman president in 2024. Haiti's President Jovenel Moise is assassinated in 2021, and armed gangs take over much of Port-au-Prince, while El Salvador's Nayib Bukele jails tens of thousands in a sweeping crackdown on gangs from 2022.

Northern South America

Brazil, under Jair Bolsonaro, records some 700,000 COVID-19 deaths, and Peru reports the world's highest death rate. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva returns as Brazil's president in January 2023, a week before Bolsonaro's supporters storm government buildings in Brasilia. Peru's President Pedro Castillo is removed and arrested in December 2022 after trying to dissolve Congress. Nearly eight million Venezuelans have left their country, and Nicolas Maduro claims victory in a disputed July 2024 election. Colombia elects its first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, in 2022, Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa declares war on drug gangs in January 2024, and an oil boom makes Guyana one of the world's fastest-growing economies.

Southern Cone

Argentina, battered by the pandemic and by inflation approaching 200 percent a year, elects the libertarian outsider Javier Milei, who takes office in December 2023 promising to slash the state; Argentina also wins the 2022 football World Cup. In Chile, Gabriel Boric is elected president in 2021 after mass protests, but voters reject two proposed new constitutions, in 2022 and 2023. Paraguay elects Santiago Pena in 2023, Uruguay elects Yamandu Orsi in November 2024, and in 2024 the worst floods in its history devastate Brazil's southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Australasia & Oceania

Australia and New Zealand close their borders and keep COVID-19 deaths low through 2020 and 2021. New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern wins a landslide in 2020 and steps down in 2023, and Christopher Luxon becomes prime minister later that year. Under the AUKUS pact (2021), Australia is to gain nuclear-powered submarines with American and British help; Anthony Albanese becomes prime minister in 2022, and Australians reject an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in a 2023 referendum. The Hunga Tonga undersea volcano erupts with enormous force in January 2022, and deadly unrest breaks out in New Caledonia in 2024 over voting rules.

Events

  1. Arab Spring uprisings; civil war begins in Syria
  2. Russia annexes Crimea; Islamic State seizes large parts of Iraq and Syria
  3. Britain leaves the EU (January); WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic (March)
  4. Military coup in Myanmar (February); Taliban retake Kabul (August)
  5. Russia launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine (February)
  6. World population reaches eight billion (November)
  7. India becomes the most populous country; Hamas-led attack on Israel and war in Gaza (October)
  8. Warmest year on record; Assad overthrown in Syria (December)

Moments of this period

Wars of this period

More chapters

Sources