Most countries of the modern world, including such major states as Germany and Italy, became independent after the beginning of the nineteenth century. Of the world’s current countries, only 27 were independent in 1800. (Ten of the 27 were in Europe; the others were Afghanistan, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Nepal, Oman, Paraguay, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United States, and Venezuela.)

Following 1800, there have been four great periods of national independence. During the first of these (1800– 1914), most of the mainland countries of the Americas achieved independence. During the second period (1915– 1939), the countries of Eastern Europe emerged as independent entities. The third period (1940– 1959) includes World War II and the years that followed, when independence for African and Asian nations that had been under control of colonial powers first began to occur. During the fourth period (1960– 1989), independence came to the remainder of the colonial African and Asian nations, as well as to former colonies in the Caribbean and the South Pacific.

More than half of the world’s countries came into being as independent political entities during this period. Finally, in the last decade (1990– 2000), the breakup of the existing states of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia created 22 countries where only 3 had existed before.