Apart from Britain and France, are there any countries left that have colonies, that is, dependent areas that are officially called colonies?

Baloo55th

Dutch ones (Netherlands Antilles) are sort of self governing. America has places like Guam and Eastern Samoa, but they don't call them colonies. Jan 13 05, 11:22 AM

Stew54

Just for the record, Britain doesn't have any dependent areas that are officially called colonies either. Places that are under UK sovereignty or formal control but aren't part of the United Kingdom are properly called UK Overseas Territories, and before that they were called Dependent Territories. They haven't had the emotive name "Crown Colony" for some time. Don't know about France, though. Jan 13 05, 1:54 PM

Baloo55th

A lot of the French overseas bits are actually part of France - overseas departements. Which is how France manages to have frontiers with Guyana and Brazil. Germany lost all its colonies after WW I. Russia's former colony Alaska was sold to the USA. Belgium's became Zaire, and the Portuguese and Spanish ones are all independent - with the possible exception of Western Sahara which is in a rather odd position. Denmark sold its colony in the West Indies to the USA. The powers with Overseas Territories (as pointed out - the modern name for colonies) are France, UK, Netherlands and USA, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Ecuador. Forgot one - India (the Andamans and Nicobars). Jan 13 05, 2:35 PM

Arpeggionist

Greenland is a Danish dependency, but there's not much there (in terms of people) to colonize. Until very recently Micronesia was a US colony. Whether or not the word "colony" is used to describe a place dependent on another country is merely a matter of semantics. Jan 13 05, 4:08 PM

Flynn_17

Germans used to have Namibia. Portugal used to have Cabo Verde. Jan 13 05, 4:13 PM

Baloo55th

Germany also used to have Cameroon, Togo, Eastern Samoa, part of New Guinea, the Caroline Islands and the rest of Micronesia that's now 'associated' with the US, and German East Africa (Tanganyika) and Ruanda-Urundi as well. Portugal had Angola, Macao, Mozambique and Goa. Jan 13 05, 5:29 PM