Lasting Legacies of Colonial Geography

The collapse of European empires accelerated sharply after 1945, propelled by the United Nations Charter's recognition of self-determination, the 1955 Bandung Conference of newly independent Asian and African states, and, most dramatically, the 1960 "Year of Africa," in which seventeen African nations gained independence within a single year, including Nigeria and the bulk of the former French West and Equatorial African federations. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), founded in Addis Ababa in 1963, brought the continent's new states together to manage the transition from colonial to independent rule.