After you all seemed to enjoy a video I did a couple of weeks ago about big countries that
are now smaller, I thought I would do the opposite here and talk about a few countries that started
off as being reasonably small and are now large. Now arguably every country started off as small
so I feel like at the end of the day, this is just going to be a description of how some of
the biggest countries in the world achieved their size. Essentially, I'm going to list out a few
big countries and explain how they became that big. We're going to take a look at six cases. The USA
Germany, Russia, the Roman Empire, Brazil, and Canada. There's obviously room for many more
so if you want, I'll do a part two of this. And I know the Roman Empire kind of stands out because
it doesn't exist anymore, but I like it, so I wanted to include it. Let's jump right into it
with the one on the thumbnail, the United States of America. It all started in 1776, when the 13
colonies of the Kingdom of Great Britain in North America collectively declared their independence
as the United States of America, having the 13 colonies land as their initial territory. They
soon also claimed the British lands to the west of the now former colonies, both those which were
reserved for the natives and other colonies of the British. In 1777, the northeast region of New
York, having been left out of the original 13 colonies, also declared independence. In New
Connecticut, then being renamed to Vermont, became a state. Although they didn't join the U.S. right
away. When the revolutionary movement was successful and Great Britain recognized the
independence of the United States, the former British areas, in what are now the full USA
were given to the United States. Although there were a couple border disagreements with both
them and Spain. After this, there was a period of internal restructuring and organization of the
territory. And then the expansion west began. In 1803, the United States purchased Louisiana
from France, a gigantic territory. I have a whole video explaining why and how this happened. I'll
leave the link in the description if you want to check it out. The next phase was the northwest
expansion, starting in 1819 until 1845, which established the northern border as this straight
line and defined Oregon country as a shared region with the UK. I can't imagine how two
countries share a region, but I guess it happened. In 1821, Spain ceded Florida to the Union. Next
was the Southwest expansion, with the annexation of Texas and its admittance as the 28th state
in 1845. A year later, in 1846, the northern border was fully defined. Oregon country lost a little
bit of land to the British, but became fully under the sovereignty of the United States. However
However, Texas annexation by the US came after the region revolted against Mexico
This was something Mexico didn't like and so it led to a war between the two countries
The US won this war and so the peace treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo saw Mexico cede a big
portion of land to the United States, consisting of its territories of Alta California, Santa
Fe and Nuevo Mexico, as well as their claim to Texas. This was in 1848
In 1854, the US purchased a large parcel of land from Mexico, known as the Gadsden Purchase
as it offered a much better route for a southern railroad that the US wanted to build
After this, America's continental rule was pretty much established. And so, American imperialism began, with the US wanting to stretch their rule overseas
First, they claimed the Navassa and Howland Islands in 1858. Then a year later the Johnston Attle and more and more Pacific Islands followed with the highest point being the annexation of Hawaii in 1898 Before that in 1867 they bought Alaska from the Russian
Empire by a mere $7.2 million. In today's value, that would equal around $115 million
still pretty cheap. Also from 1868 onwards, they started claiming islands in the Caribbean
further stretching their reach abroad, and becoming one of the biggest countries in the world
Next we have Germany. Now Germany is complicated because its emergence as a single nation state
was considerably late in history when compared to other countries. We have the Holy Roman Empire
and the absurd geographic mess that it seemed to be. So it's difficult to pinpoint a location
or an origin state especially because a lot of them overlapped. However, Wikipedia actually had
a very interesting graph that allows us to see which existed earlier and later and how they
sometimes coexisted. And so, we can technically point out the several origin states of Germany
the Old Prussians, the Lutetian Federation, the Northern March, amongst many others. Not to mention
the various states and principalities within the Holy Roman Empire, which now make up Germany
But considering that Germany comes from the German Empire, the German Empire comes from the North
German Federation, which consists mostly of Prussia, I think we can use that as a starting
point. Prussia began as the Teutonic Order. At the same time, there was the Electorate or
Margraviate of Brandenburg and these two were soon to be connected. The Teutonic Order was a
religious institution and a Polish fief. Eventually, it became secularized into Prussia. Its rulers
married into the Brandenburgen household and when the Prussian duke died without an heir
Brandenburg took over Prussia. In fact, they fully migrated there because their land in Brandenburg
had been almost totally destroyed by war. After being established as independent Prussia
they began conquering or annexing more and more of Germany, with its expansion being very related
to the Hanseatic League, a commercial and defensive confederation of merchants and market towns in
Northwest and Central Europe. Through many other wars as well with the Austrians, Danish, French
Polish, and even within German states themselves, their rule grew more and more. And where their
direct administration and military rule did not enter, their political influence did in smaller
German states. Eventually, the HRE was dissolved and the short-lived German confederation ended
In 1871, the Prussians were victorious against the French in the Franco-Prussian War and proclaimed
William I of Prussia as German Emperor. The unification of Germany had thus begun
and new states and kingdoms joined Germany, even if maintaining some of their sovereignty for a
while, and their territory followed. During the world wars, they lost and gained territory
but eventually leading to today's current German borders. Smaller than the empire once was
but still significantly larger than the territory of the original Margraviate and order. The
Brandenburg nobility and Prussia were therefore able to turn a somewhat small territory into a very
large country, passing through periods of even greater territorial vastness. One we really can't
overlook is the biggest country in the world today, Russia. Russia's case is incredible. If we want to
be very basic with it, it started off as a bunch of guys from East Sweden deciding to sail down to
the territory and starting a chain of events that led to the biggest country in the world being
formed. It all starts with the Rurik dynasty, which emerged from coastal eastern Sweden. According
to the prevalent theory the name Rus is derived from an Old Norse term for the men who row these Swedes And this might be the reason Russia has its name Traveling from Sweden to Russia they established themselves in Novgorod in the north Soon after
they established the Kievan Rus, a large gathering of principalities under their control. But this
unification didn't last long. By the middle of the 12th century, the Kievan Rus had dissolved
and the principalities became independent, each ruled by a different branch of the Rurik dynasty
The most important of them for us here is the Grand Principality of Moscow
from which modern Russia began shaping up. I found this detailed map of its territorial
expansion between 1300 and 1462, but it's in Russian and has no regional context
so I have no idea what it means. But in this larger one, we can see it better through these
shades of green. The darker green was what they had in 1300, and as the green becomes lighter
we see their territorial growth all the way to 1547, time when they became the Tsardom of Russia
expanding a lot more. First south and east in the 1600s and then all the way to Eastern Asia
in the 1700s. Establishing themselves as the Russian Empire in 1721 and reaching their peak
territorial reach around 1917, counting with many protectorates both in the east and west
The reason why I think they managed to conquer such vast territories is that they were probably
very empty places and so it was enough to conquer the most significant settlement in the area and
instantly claim sovereignty over the enormous surrounding territory. Going through regime changes all the way to modern Russia, it gained and lost some land, but still maintained its place
as the world's biggest country, starting as the small principality of Moscow or as the tiny group
of Swedish sailors and then growing more and more. A few key territorial gains were the temporary
annexation of Finland after defeating the Swedish in 1809, the temporary conquest of Ukraine from
the Ottomans, vassal states, or the many annexations of several Asian canats in Central Asia. I kind of
want to make a fully detailed video about how Russia got so big and all its territorial evolutions
so let me know in the comments if this is a type of video you would like to see. A historical empire
which didn't last but evolved from being very small to very big, is the Roman Empire. Starting
from a small city in 510 BC, expanding throughout Italy, Europe and even parts of Asia, evolving
from one settlement, which was certainly smaller than today's Rome, to one of the biggest
empires that the world has ever seen. It began with the conquest of the Latin League, then
conquering Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia, as well as establishing a foothold in the Balkans
and then going full empire mode and moving into the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, Greece
and having its basis as the whole of Italy. Then expanding even further through Caesar's conquest
of Gaul and Augustus' conquest of Germany. At the time of Trajan's victory over the Parthians
the Roman Empire stretched from today's Lisbon in the west to northern England, the Caucasus
Egypt, and Morocco, then slowly beginning its descent and dissolution. If we choose to get
into empires we have the examples of the united kingdom portugal spain or france whose origin as
countries were in reasonably small territories and which expanded to rule enormous parts of the
entire world portugal started off as a small county and achieved a very large empire the uk
arguably started off as a number of small kingdoms then ruling almost a quarter of the world
spain and france had similar medium-sized origins then spreading their reach immensely both in
continental Europe as well, as overseas through their empires. But we won't get too much into those here because I want to make a full video on the
biggest colonial empires Another example today in South America is Brazil I found a gift that illustrates Brazil territorial expansion throughout time from the Portuguese captaincies in 1534 to modern
times, also showing their internal organization. It's really cool to see how it changed, but we
should also try to understand why. Brazil began as a Portuguese colony, with its territory being
fairly limited as to how further in it could go. This was because of a treaty signed between the
Portuguese and the Spanish, in which they literally divided the world in two. The Portuguese got Africa
and most of the Indian Ocean, while the Spanish got the Pacific and most of America. Eventually
the treaty was amended, granting the Portuguese more southern American land. But the key moment
was actually during the brief loss of Portuguese sovereignty to the Spanish in the Iberian Union
of 1580 to 1640. During this time, the Treaty of Tordesillas was annulled, and so the colonists
of Brazil were allowed to travel further west into the heartlands of South America and what
would then become Brazil. At the time of independence from Portugal, most of Brazil's boundaries had
been established. However, there were a few changes still. The Cisplatina Republic was lost
for instance, becoming independent in what is now Uruguay. And they took a few pieces of land
off Bolivia as well, such as the Acre. And finally for this video, up north, Canada. Here
it all started in 1867. The dominion of Canada was formed by the United Kingdom from three provinces
of British North America. Canada, which eventually split into the provinces of Ontario and Quebec
New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Three years later, in 1870, the UK transferred most of its remaining
land in North America to Canada, with the Northwestern Territory and Rupert's Land
becoming the Northwest Territories. A fun fact is that the transfer of Rupert's Land was done
through a payment of 300,000 pounds by Canada to the Hudson Bay Company, a company which still
exists today and was founded in 1670 as an English royal charter, having functioned as the de facto
government of Canada's territories for a while back then. After this, in 1871, the British colony
of British Columbia joined Canada as the sixth province. The province brought along its dispute
with the United States over the San Juan Islands, which the US eventually won
Two years later in 1873, they got a 7th province as Prince Edward Island joined
After this, the only territorial changes they had were in internal organization, with the
exception of Britain's transfer of their Arctic Islands to the Canadian government
in 1880. It's interesting because it's one of the biggest countries in the world, but it did
not have to conquer most of its land as it was given to them from their former colonial
ruler as opposed to the US which had to mostly conquer it from the British
Of course we can argue that the British had to conquer it from the natives and compete
with other colonial powers to get the land, but it's interesting to see how each large
country followed a different path towards that territorial greatness. So those are a few of the countries in the world which are now or were once big, having
originated from very or somewhat small territories. I got a bunch of suggestions from you guys on the big to small countries video of more
countries which lost significant parts of their territory, so I might make a part 2
of that one still. But if you would like a part 2 of this one as well, leave a comment below with suggestions
of more countries which are now or were once big in terms of area, having originated from
a small territory and expanding their rule throughout history. Thanks so much for watching this video
Subscribe if you want to catch future ones. And I will see you next time for more general knowledge