MAPS OF HISTORY · HISTORY OF · Somalia

ONE LAND · 3 ATLASES

Somalia, on the map of history

What was Somalia before it was Somalia? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History collection — who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed — each line linked to the dated map that shows it. Modern borders stand in as an honest approximation; every atlas says so on the map itself.

Somalia · The Great War, 1914–1918

OPEN WWI ON THE LIVING MAP →

Somalia · The Cold War, 1945–1991

OPEN THE COLD WAR ON THE LIVING MAP →

Somalia · The Decolonization of Africa, 1945–1994

Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland united at independence in 1960 to form Somalia — a rare case of a single ethnic nation, and thus of irredentist ambition to gather Somalis divided by colonial borders across Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. That ambition drove the 1977 Ogaden war; the frozen-border principle held, and Somalia lost. Later state collapse would make it the tragic counter-case to the OAU’s border bargain.

OPEN THE DECOLONIZATION OF AFRICA ON THE LIVING MAP →