The process by which European colonial empires dissolved between 1945 and 1975 — as Asian and African peoples won independence through armed struggle, negotiation, and political pressure — transforming the map of the world, creating dozens of new states, and generating the political and economic structures of the contemporary Global South.
In 1939, European powers controlled roughly 85% of the world's land surface. By 1975, most of that empire was gone — replaced by dozens of new states whose borders, institutions, and economies bore the deep imprint of colonial rule. Decolonization was the most rapid political transformation in modern history. Its consequences are the world we live in.