Europe's borders, 1648–1995
Europe at eleven turning points, from the Peace of Westphalia to the end of the Cold War.
Each step colors the countries that matter most for that moment; the rest are plain with their borders. Tap a country or pick it in the list to see its name and where the shape came from.
Every step in words
1648: The Peace of Westphalia
Borders as of 25 October 1648
The Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War. It recognized the Dutch Republic and the Swiss Confederation as independent, gave Sweden land on the German coast and gave France land on the Rhine, including parts of Alsace. The Holy Roman Empire's hundreds of princes could now run their own lands and choose their own religion: Catholic, Lutheran or Calvinist.
Westphalia is often called the start of the modern system of sovereign states, each in charge inside its own borders. It left the Holy Roman Empire weak and divided, and France set to become Europe's strongest power.
Not shown: Royal Hungary (the Habsburg part of Hungary, plus Croatia), the Duchy of Savoy, Spain's Kingdom of Naples and Duchy of Milan, the Smolensk lands (then ruled by Poland–Lithuania) and the Crimean Khanate (under the Ottomans) have no shape in the dataset for 1648, so they are left plain. Breisach, the fortress town on the Rhine's east bank that France also gained at Westphalia, is too small to have its own shape, so it sits inside the Holy Roman Empire's.
1715: After the War of the Spanish Succession
Borders as of 1 June 1715
The treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt (1713–1714) let Louis XIV's grandson keep the throne of Spain, but France and Spain could never be united. Austria's Habsburgs got Spain's lands in Italy and the Southern Netherlands. Britain got Gibraltar and Minorca, Savoy got Sicily, and Prussia's ruler was recognized as a king.
This was the balance of power at work: the other powers joined together to stop any one country, here France, from dominating Europe. Britain came out as a leading power.
Not shown: The Habsburgs' Kingdom of Hungary (with Croatia and Transylvania) and their island of Sardinia, Savoy's lands on the mainland (Piedmont), British Minorca and the Crimean Khanate have no shape in the dataset for 1715, so they are left plain. Austria itself and the Austrian Netherlands are inside the Holy Roman Empire's shape.
1789: On the eve of the French Revolution
Borders as of 14 July 1789, the fall of the Bastille
France was still a kingdom under Louis XVI. Prussia and Russia had grown into great powers, and with Austria they had already taken a large slice of Poland–Lithuania in 1772.
Over the next 25 years, revolutionary and Napoleonic France would go to war with all of these powers and redraw the map. Poland–Lithuania would be split up entirely by 1795.
Not shown: The Habsburg lands outside the Holy Roman Empire (Hungary, Croatia, Transylvania and Galicia) and Russia's new lands on the Black Sea (Crimea, taken in 1783, and the coast around Kherson) have no shape in the dataset for 1789, so they are left plain. Austria, the third great power, is drawn inside the Holy Roman Empire's shape.
1812: Napoleon at his height
Borders as of 1 June 1812, just before the invasion of Russia
Napoleon's French Empire stretched from Hamburg to Rome. His brother Joseph was king of Spain (where a war against him was raging), though Napoleon had annexed Catalonia, in Spain's northeast, to France itself in January 1812. His family and allies ruled the Kingdom of Italy, Naples, Westphalia, the Duchy of Warsaw and the German states of the Confederation of the Rhine, and Denmark–Norway was his ally. Prussia and Austria had been beaten and forced into alliances.
In June 1812 Napoleon invaded Russia with about 600,000 soldiers; most never came back. His defeat there, and in Spain, led to his fall in 1814 and 1815.
Not shown: Each state is drawn with its own border, so the Confederation of the Rhine shows as many small states. Some of its members, the Grand Duchies of Frankfurt and Würzburg, Nassau and the small Saxon duchies around Weimar and Gotha, have no shape in the dataset for 1812 and are left plain, as are the Ionian Islands. Austria and Prussia, beaten earlier and forced to send troops against Russia in 1812, are left uncolored.
1815: The Congress of Vienna
Borders as of 1 December 1815
After Napoleon's defeat, the great powers met at Vienna. France went back to about its 1790 borders. Prussia gained land on the Rhine and more than half of Saxony's land; Austria gained northern Italy; Russia's tsar became king of a new Kingdom of Poland. Belgium was joined to the Netherlands and Genoa to Sardinia, to box France in, and Norway went to Sweden.
The settlement restored kings and aimed at a balance of power. The Concert of Europe it created kept the peace between the great powers for decades, but it ignored the rising nationalism of Germans, Italians, Poles and Belgians.
Not shown: The Kingdom of Bavaria, the Palatinate west of the Rhine (Bavarian from 1816), the small Saxon duchies around Weimar and Gotha, and the Tarnopol district that Russia handed back to Austria have no shape in the dataset for late 1815, so they are left plain. The German Confederation, a loose league of 39 states, isn't drawn as one shape.
1871: Germany and Italy unified
Borders as of 1 June 1871
Italy was unified between 1859 and 1870, finishing with the capture of Rome. Under Bismarck, Prussia united Germany through three wars; after beating France, it proclaimed the German Empire in January 1871 and took Alsace and part of Lorraine.
A powerful new Germany upset the balance of power. France's anger over Alsace–Lorraine, and the growing rivalry of the great powers, set the stage for World War I.
Not shown: Romania (the United Principalities) has no shape of its own in the dataset for 1871; it's inside the Ottoman Empire's shape, which it was still part of in name.
1914: On the eve of World War I
Borders as of 28 June 1914, the day Franz Ferdinand was killed
Europe was split into two alliances: the Triple Entente of France, Russia and Britain, and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. The Ottoman Empire had lost almost all its European land in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913.
When a Serbian nationalist killed Austria-Hungary's heir in Sarajevo, the alliances pulled the powers into war within weeks. Italy stayed out at first and joined the Entente's side in 1915.
1924: After the peace treaties
Borders as of 1 September 1924
The treaties after World War I broke up Austria-Hungary and took land from Germany and Russia. New or restored countries filled Central and Eastern Europe: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Finland and the Baltic states. The Irish Free State broke away from the United Kingdom, and the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) set the borders of the new Republic of Turkey.
Many of the new borders left large minorities on the wrong side, like the Germans in Czechoslovakia and Poland. Germany's anger at the Treaty of Versailles helped Hitler rise.
Not shown: The Saar, run by the League of Nations from 1920 to 1935, is left plain.
1939: On the eve of World War II
Borders as of 31 August 1939
Nazi Germany had taken Austria (March 1938), the Sudetenland (October 1938), the rest of the Czech lands (March 1939) and Memel. Slovakia became a German puppet state. Italy had taken Albania. A week earlier, Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a pact not to fight each other.
Britain and France had tried to avoid war by giving in to Hitler, a policy called appeasement. The next day, 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland; on 3 September Britain and France declared war on Germany.
1980: The Cold War
Borders as of 1 January 1980
After World War II, Germany was split into West Germany and East Germany, and the Soviet Union moved its western border west. Europe was divided by the “Iron Curtain” into NATO, allied with the United States, and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. A few countries stayed neutral, and communist Yugoslavia and Albania went their own way.
These borders held from the late 1940s until 1989–1991. The division shaped everything from economics (Western Europe's integration, Eastern Europe's planned economies) to the uprisings the Soviets crushed in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968).
1995: After the Cold War
Borders as of 1 June 1995
Communism fell across Eastern Europe in 1989. Germany reunified in 1990, and the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 into 15 countries. Czechoslovakia split peacefully in 1993, while Yugoslavia broke apart in war.
The new countries had to build democracies and market economies, and most later joined NATO and the European Union. The wars in Bosnia and Croatia brought the worst killing in Europe since 1945, including the genocide at Srebrenica six weeks after this date.
Where the borders come from
- OpenHistoricalMap country boundaries, OpenHistoricalMap contributors. CC0 (public domain).
- Natural Earth coastlines, lakes and countries (1:50m), Natural Earth. Public domain.
What to keep in mind
- Borders come from OpenHistoricalMap, an open map of history built by volunteers. Each country's border has a start and end date, and the map shows the ones in force on the date given. Volunteers trace them from old maps and treaties, so small details can be off, and few borders cite a source line by line.
- To keep the map quick to load, borders and coastlines are smoothed, and tiny states (like San Marino or Andorra) may be too small to see. They're still in the list below the map.
- Land with no shape in the dataset for that date is drawn plain, with no border. The larger gaps are named under the map for that step.