The world as it was on August 1st 1949 (click to enlarge on all maps)
Nuclear powers: US.
Doomsday clock: 7 minutes to midnight.
World map sized according to its population in 1950 but with postcolonial borders from 2010.
Largest countries: China, India, Soviet Union, US, British Empire, French Empire = 60% of the human race.
War and occupation:
- Civil wars: China, Greece, Colombia.
- Wars of independence: Vietnam, Indonesia.
- Military occupation: Japan, Germany, Austria, Trieste, Suez Canal.
- Colonial occupation: nearly all of Africa, parts of Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean.
Still independent:
- of China: Tibet, part of East Turkestan
- of India: Sikkim, Tripura, Manipur.
Canada gained Newfoundland in March.
The US has 48 states with only half as many people as in 2010. Much like a Woody Allen film, it is 88% non-Hispanic White, 10% Black and 2% everyone else.
Europe on October 7th 1949, from Omniatlas.
Europe: Germany, Austria and Trieste are still under military occupation from the Second World War. Germany is being divided into East and West Germany. The Berlin Blockade was lifted in May.
- Marshall Plan: the US is pumping billions of dollars into western Europe.
- NATO: In April the NATO miltary alliance was formed. Charter members: US, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway and Iceland. Some say it will lead to the Third World War. Others say that it will prevent it.
Africa in 1949, from Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Africa: only four independent countries: Liberia, Ethiopia, Egypt, and South Africa. Nearly all the rest of Africa is ruled by Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal. South Africa is sinking into apartheid.
Asia: Europe is losing its colonies: Britain has pulled out of India, France is fighting in Vietnam and the Dutch are fighting in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia).
Palestine, after war ends in March, is formally divided into three: Israel in the west, Jordan in the east, and, going to Egypt, the Gaza Strip in the south. Jerusalem is itself divided between Israel and Jordan.
South Asia on January 6th 1949, from Omniatlas.
India:
- Pakistan has taken part of Kashmir.
- Portugal still has Goa.
- France still has Pondichery and four other ports: Chandernagore, Yanaon, Karikal, and Mahe. All but Mahe are along the east coast.
East Asia on June 1st 1949, from Omniatlas.
China is sunk in a huge civil war between Mao’s communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists. Since the beginning of the year Mao has taken over Peking (Beijing), Nanking (Nanjing) and Shanghai. Mao and Chiang are now fighting for control of southern China.
Japan is under US military occupation, a part of it under British Commonwealth occupation.
Transjordan is now Jordan.
Siam is now Thailand.
Some name changes since 1949:
- Anglo-Egyptian Sudan = Sudan + South Sudan.
- Basutoland – Lesotho.
- Bechuanaland – Botswana.
- Belgian Congo = D.R. Congo + Burundi + Rwanda.
- British Guiana – Guyana.
- British Honduras – Belize.
- Ceylon – Sri Lanka.
- Czechoslovakia = Czech Republic + Slovakia.
- Dahomey – Benin.
- Dutch East Indies – Indonesia.
- East Pakistan – Bangladesh.
- Formosa – Taiwan.
- French Guinea – Guinea.
- French Somaliland – Djibouti.
- French Sudan – Mali.
- Gold Coast – Ghana.
- Malaya – mainland Malaysia.
- Northern Rhodesia – Zambia.
- Nyasaland – Malawi.
- Oubangui Chari – Central African Republic.
- Somaliland – Somalia.
- South West Africa – Namibia.
- Southern Rhodesia – Zimbabwe.
- Soviet Union = Russia + Lativa + Lithuania + Estonia + Belarus + Moldova + Ukraine + Georgia + Armenia + Azerbaijan + Turkmenistan + Uzbekistan + Tajikistan + Kyrghyzstan + Kazakhstan.
- Spanish Guinea – Equatorial Guinea.
- Tanganyika – Tanzania without Zanzibar.
- Yugoslavia = Slovenia + Croatia + Serbia + Bosnia-Herzegovina + Montenegro + Macedonia.
– Abagond, 2017.
Source: mainly Omniatlas and Google Images.
See also:
- Doomsday Clock
- atom bomb
- The ten largest countries by population, 1900 to 2100
- 1949
- style guide: H.G. Wells
- Mao
- British Empire
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This post made me nostalgic. 1949 was a better time to live than the modern day. So many things have changed since then, mostly for the worse.
PS: Colonialism wasn’t occupation, any more than Bavaria being ruled from Berlin is.
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