Colonialism is a system in which one nation occupies and governs a foreign land, for economic or military gain. Modern colonialism has its origins in the 16th century, when nations like England, Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands conquered and exploited large areas of North and South America, India, and southeast Asia. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Germany, the United States, Belgium, Italy, Japan, and Russia competed for new colonies. They dominated China, Africa, and the Middle East in order to assure raw materials, establish military bases, and open markets for their products. Competition among world powers for new colonies was one of the major causes of World War I. Colonialism declined after World War II, when independence movements and the cost of maintaining colonies led most Western powers to give up their colonial empires.
