A Brief History
On July 9, 2011, South Sudan seceded from Sudan and became the latest new African country. While Africa has been a center of creating new countries, a dizzying number of new sovereign nations have been formed since 1960.
Digging Deeper
In 1960 alone, Africa went from having 9 independent nations to 26 countries, an incredible increase. In 1991 and 1992, when the Soviet Union dissolved, the single nation became 12 separate nations. Other Soviet era nations that split up into smaller countries include Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.
Besides the erosion of imperialism with nations gaining independence, other factors such as the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964 created one less country. In all, United Nations membership has gone from 82 members in 1958 to 193 members with the addition of South Sudan.
Meanwhile, Africa now has 54 countries along with five territories and two disputed territories.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
DK. History of the World Map by Map. DK, 2018.
Furtado, Peter. Histories of Nations: How Their Identities Were Forged. Thames & Hudson, 2019.
The featured image in this article, a map of South Sudan, is a map derived from a United Nations (UN) map. Unless stated otherwise, UN maps are to be considered in the public domain worldwide.
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