File:Landing_of_Columbus_(2)_(cropped).jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

EntityQ7167· pop 156· linked from 4,258 articles

colonialism

thumb|A 1665 illustration of a Dutch East India Company factory in [[Hugli-Chuchura, depicting various elements of colonialism, including its hierarchies and impact on the colonized and their lands]]

AI overview

Colonialism was the practice of establishing control over distant territories and their peoples, as illustrated by European companies like the Dutch East India Company that built factories and trading posts in places such as India. It matters because it created hierarchies of power that had lasting impacts on colonized lands and peoples, shaping global inequalities that persist today.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Research

264,327 papers

Settler colonialism de-develops food systems in protracted crises.ReviewNature food · 2025Tak M, Hussain SB, Zargar H et al.DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01211-1
Confronting Colonialism in Canadian Dietetics Curricula.Canadian journal of dietetic practice and research : a publication of Dietitians of Canada = Revue canadienne de la pratique et de la recherche en dietetique : une publication des Dietetistes du Canada · 2023Stein S., Robin T., Wesley M. BSc, RD et al.DOI: 10.3148/cjdpr-2023-017
Towards a bidirectional decoloniality in academic global health: insights from settler colonialism and racial capitalism.ReviewThe Lancet. Global health · 2023Wispelwey B, Osuagwu C, Mills D et al.DOI: 10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00307-8
The Rhetoric of Decolonizing Global Health Fails to Address the Reality of Settler Colonialism: Gaza as a Case in Point.International journal of health policy and management · 2024Engebretsen E, Baker MDOI: 10.34172/ijhpm.2024.8419
Colonialism, gender and mental health in psychology: a view from Eastern Cuba.International review of psychiatry (Abingdon, England) · 2020Torralbas Fernández A, Calcerrada Gutierrez MDOI: 10.1080/09540261.2020.1733941
Colonial histories, racism and health-The experience of Māori and Indigenous peoples.Public health · 2019Reid P, Cormack D, Paine SJDOI: 10.1016/j.puhe.2019.03.027
Between Past and Present: The Sociopsychological Constructs of Colonialism, Coloniality and Postcolonialism.ReviewIntegrative psychological & behavioral science · 2018Tomicic A, Berardi FDOI: 10.1007/s12124-017-9407-5
The harmful legacy of colonialism in natural hazard risk.Nature communications · 2022Scarlett JPDOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34792-7

via PubMed

Wikidata facts

Image: Spanish Empire-World Map.png

Show 1 more fact

Commons category: Colonialism

Sources (4)

via Wikidata · CC0

~71 min read

Article

38 sections

Contents

Etymology
Definitions
Types of colonialism
Versus imperialism
Socio-cultural evolution
History
Antiquity
Medieval
Modern
20th century
World War I
Interwar years
World War II
Post-WWII decolonization
Contemporary
Impact
Economy, trade and commerce
Slavery and indentured servitude
Military innovation
End of empire
Post-independence population movement
Introduced diseases
Countering disease
Botany
Geography
Ocean and space
Marxism
Liberalism and capitalism
Race and gender
Othering
Post-colonialism
Migrations
See also
References
Sources
Further reading
Primary sources
External links

thumb|A 1665 illustration of a Dutch East India Company factory in [[Hugli-Chuchura, depicting various elements of colonialism, including its hierarchies and impact on the colonized and their lands]]

Colonialism is the practice of extending and maintaining political, social, economic, and cultural domination over a territory and its people by another people in pursuit of interests defined in an often distant metropole, who also claim superiority. While frequently an imperialist project, colonialism functions through differentiating between the targeted land and people, and that of the colonizers (a critical component of colonization). Rather than annexation, this typically culminates in organizing the colonized into colonies separate to the colonizers' metropole. Colonialism sometimes deepens by developing settler colonialism, whereby settlers from one or multiple colonizing metropoles occupy a territory with the intention of partially or completely supplanting the existing Indigenous peoples, possibly amounting to genocide.