Which countries were never colonized by Europeans? The first on the list is Thailand which used to be called the Kingdom of Siam. The kingdom was strategically positioned between the British Raj on the west and French Indochina on the east and acted as a sort of buffer between the two European powers and neither of them wanted the other to take control over it. However, in order to evade a war with French Indochina, Thailand had to cede Laos to the French in 1893. Next, we have Liberia the small country on the West African coast that escaped European colonialism due to the United States' interest in the region. The U.S. or more specifically the ACS (American Colonization Society) planned to use this Land to resettle free slaves, as they believed that resettling the slaves in Africa would address social and racial issues in the United States. Moving on, Japan was also never colonized by European powers, and this can be attributed to several reasons. Firstly, Japan's population was highly homogeneous and united, which meant that European powers could not exploit any divisions between the Japanese people, as they did in Africa. Therefore, if they had desired to colonize Japan, they would have needed a massive invasion force, which was just not feasible. Additionally, the Japanese were already a colonial power themselves, having controlled territories such as Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria. #maps #history #geopolitics