Does anyone know what the most contested peice of land on this planet has been? (I don't). I'm interested in knowing. Taking a shot in the dark, I'd say it's either Palestine or some place in Europe.

I'd say the Iraq region. Iraq had been controlled by Romans, Persians, Turks, Mongols, Byzantines... the list goes on and on. They've hardly had a break from warfare ever since the rise of Sumerian city states.

hmm very interesting topic

I have to agree with Riesstiu IV, I think that Mesopotamia has to be one of, if not the most disputed, piece of land in history

The middle east in general hasn't had a break. With people fighting over good rural land, then the trade routes, then religion, then nationalism, then oil, then terrorism, the middle east is the most violent, most disputed, most wanted piece of land in history.

-Eastern Europe (around Balkans, modern day Serbia)
-Modern day Iraq
-Modern day Turkey
-Modern day India (especially where Delhi is)
-Samarkand, Bukharra- The turks in the region were constantly fighting each other for control of the cities and the area.

Belgium

Flat land, very good place to move large armies and fight in Europe. The land itself has not been disputed that much, but many conflicts between other nations has been settled their, or going through the country

Steph, when I saw the thread title I thought 'Belgium' too. Although Transoxiana (the general region around Samarqand), the modern country of Iraq, and the north of modern-day Pakistan and India (as well as a small part of Afghanistan) have also been greatly prized and competed over.

for the last 500 years, British Columbia is up there.

natives fighting eachother for it, conquerors taking it, british negotiating with americans for it, now natives trying to reclaim it for the past 200 years.

also, the Koreas could be mentioned.

I think Iraq takes the cake. 4000 years or so of warfare going back to the Sumerians. Maybe longer.

yep, the fetile crescent, and the mesopotamian leg of it in particuler is bty far the most contested land in all history

Mesopotamia. Four hundred years of Ottoman rule disqualifies modern-day Israel, which would otherwise also be a strong contender.

Israel is also disputed since the Ancient times. The Hebrews waged many wars against their neighbours, not to mention that they were probably the most rebel roman province.

Mesopotamia hardly ever got a break. IIRC, only the Persians and Ottomans could provide at least some centuries of stability. Considering that Mesopotamia's political history begins somewhere in the 4th millenium BC, that isn't very much.

There is a village in eastern Germany that was taken over by 6 countries in 100 years or something.

Don't know what it was though.

Belgium wasn't really disputed, there were a lot of different rulers but not a lot of claims at the same time.

A disputed area would be the Alsace-Lotharingen region, "Germany" & France had been claiming that for a couple of centuries resulting in numerous wars.

Mesopotamia, hands down.

Let's see, it was occupied by:

-Sumer
-Babylon
-Persia
-Greeks
-Parthians
-Romans
-Britain
-Ottoman Empire
-Mongols
-Iraq
-America
-Arabia
-Medea

What am I forgetting? I just know I'm forgetting somebody!

American, British, Poles, Spanish (not for long), Honduras (not for long), El Salvador, Italian, South Korea...

French..

Originally posted by Amenhotep7
Mesopotamia, hands down.

Let's see, it was occupied by:

-Sumer and Babylon (jointly)
-Persia
-Greeks
-Parthians
-Romans
-Britain
-Ottoman Empire
-Mongols
-Iraq

What am I forgetting? I just know I'm forgetting somebody!

Arabs
Americans
Medes

Transoxiana
Sacae
Choresmians
Medians
Massagetae
Achamenid Persians
Dahae
Bactrians
Sogdians
Macedonians
Seleucids
Greaco-Bactrians
Parthians
Yue-Chi
Western Xiong-Nu
Han Chinese
Kushans
Sassanid Persians
Kushanshahs
Chionites
Hepthalites
First Gok Turks
Western Gok Turks
Tang Chinese
Caliphate
Second Gok Turks
Basmyls
Uighurs
Turgish
Qarluqs
Oghuz
Tibetans
Kyrgyz
Yellow Turks
Black Turks
Usrushanians
Taffarid Persians
Saffarid Persians
Samanid Persians
Western Qarakhanids
Eastern Qarakhanids
Farghanids
Great Seljuqs
Qara-Khitai
Khwarazmians
Naimans
Mongols
Chagataiids
Golden Horde
Il-Khanids
Timurids
Uzbeks
Kazakhs
Shaibanids
Astrakhanids
Bukharans
Khivans
Kalmucks
Kokhandids
Dzungars
Safavid Persians
Afsharid Persians
Russians
Soviets

again: disputed doesn't mean the number of different rulers, it means that 2 parties or more have a claim on that land at the SAME TIME!

Towards Mesopotamia, when did 2 or more nations/empires claim the right to own Mesopotamia at the same time?

The only time Mesopotamia was disputed was in the short period of Roman rule. When the Romans left, they didn't claim to have rights to the area after that. When the Greeks controlled it, Persia didn't exist anymore..etc.

you guys are all forgeting the Assyrians

@Ossric some empires that disputed it at the "SAME TIME" were Greeks and Perians, Romans and Persians, Greek Kingdoms against each other after Alexander the Great, Babylon and Sumaria, Sumarian city states against each other, Assyrians and Babylonians, Median and Assyrians.... the list goes on

remember all those who ruled that area CONQUERED it, so by that fact it was disputed during the endless wars and some disputes occured even during peace

Ossric, every state I listed had a disputed claim to Transoxiana. In fact, I actually forgot to list quite a large number of other claimants.

Revolutionary, unfortunately for Assyria, it effectively disappeared as a geographical entity after Babylon and Media carved it up. In fact, most of the Assyrian people only survived in the later Assyrian kingdom of Osrhoene which is west of where Assyria's borders used to be.

Originally posted by luiz
Israel is also disputed since the Ancient times. The Hebrews waged many wars against their neighbours, not to mention that they were probably the most rebel roman province.
Acccording to Roman records, it rebelled more than twice as many times as any other province.

Originally posted by Revolutionary
you guys are all forgeting the Assyrians

@Ossric some empires that disputed it at the "SAME TIME" were Greeks and Perians, Romans and Persians, Greek Kingdoms against each other after Alexander the Great, Babylon and Sumaria, Sumarian city states against each other, Assyrians and Babylonians, Median and Assyrians.... the list goes on

remember all those who ruled that area CONQUERED it, so by that fact it was disputed during the endless wars and some disputes occured even during peace

all i'm saying is that conquering a land and after that having control over it does not make the land disputed. Disputed means that you feel that you have a right to own it & consider it part of your home land. Once the Romans left Mesopotamia & the Parthians took over, the Romans weren't thinking that part of their empire was ruled by enemies, it was just territory they lost.

The Greeks didn't claim to have the right to own it, being part of their homeland. They just wanted to destroy their century old enemy Persia. Once they did that, it became part of Alexanders empire, it was never viewed upon as Greek homeland. They didn't conquer Mesopotamia because they thought it was part of their homesoil, it was just one step to destroy the Persians. Likewise, the Romans didn't think of it as hometurf, merely as a rich economicall area. It was disputed during Roman rule because the Parthians were still there. When the Greeks occupied it, it wasn't disputed because the Persians were gone..

All that i was trying to say, is that those areas have been disputed a couple of times in history, but that doesn't mean that those areas were disputed, everytime someone else ruled it.

let me give you the example of Belgium,
who disputed the Austrian, Dutch & Spanish rule? The Austrians & Spannish inherited the land, nobody else thought that it belonged to them at the time. The Dutch "United Netherlands" after 1815 was created by all the large nations in Europe. Nobody else thought then that it was rightfully theirs at that time. The French only wanted to conquer it because it was the ideal hub to lauch an invasion into GBR...

@Ossric yes you do have a point

Mesopotamia was more desired, many wanted to conquer and rule it, which many of them did

it wasn't really disputed much in the sense that different peoples at the same time felt that it was a part of there homeland and they had a right to own it

Poland and scicily have been divided and fought over quite a bit

Hmm... after the Arabs retreated from Sicily in the 9th (or 10th?) century, has there been any war about it?

Yes, there were a lot of war, Stefan. For instance, Spanish Kingdom of Aragon fougth with France for them until the end of the 15th Century. After that, they remain Spanish until the War of Succession.

Not to speak of the Normands war around it, IIRC.

disputed in modern times (but not as long as those mentioned above):

Falklands, Taiwan, Westbank, Gibraltar, some rocks north of Canada & GBR, Karillin islands (disputed between Russia & Japan), some rock off the coast of Marocco

What about Afghanistan or does it come under Transoxania?

A whole range of ruler going back to the Greeks and the Mauryans have had claims over it.

Originally posted by Ossric

Towards Mesopotamia, when did 2 or more nations/empires claim the right to own Mesopotamia at the same time?

Rome/Parthia
Byzantium/Sassanida
Ottomans/Safavids (especially this one)

Originally posted by Ossric

Towards Mesopotamia, when did 2 or more nations/empires claim the right to own Mesopotamia at the same time?


go into the civ3 editor- it may sound silly, but do it- lookat the babylonian city list- if you have the x-packs, look at the sumerian city list- then add in persia, the Hittites, Assryians, Medeians, Arabs, Hyksos, Aramaics, and a host of others- and you have the political instibilty that foughj tover the rgion during the Bronze age alone- there is NO othe rplace on earth that can match just how long and how ferociouslly mesopotamia was fough tover, weather it be the so called "home boys" fighting for what the see as thiers, or Imperialistic powers Persia and Rome looking to extand thier sphere of direct military control to protect thier own home turf.

I agree with Ossric that a disputed land isn't a land which has switched several times of rulers.

As an example, Luxembourg had been invaded by almost all major countries in Europe : Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Belgium, etc... However, people has never fought fiercely with because their goal was to control Luxembourg... It was simply a place in the middle between France, Germany, the Netherlands, and not far from Britain.

I would say that the most disputed land is Palestine and if that's the case, it's mainly due to religion. Christianism, Islam and Judaism have all good reasons to consider that land as theirs. And even before christians and muslims exist, it was already highly disputed.

;)

@Xen & @SeleucusNicator

have you read what i said about the difference of a conquered territory & a disputed territory?

Originally posted by Ossric
disputed in modern times (but not as long as those mentioned above):

Falklands, Taiwan, Westbank, Gibraltar, some rocks north of Canada & GBR, Karillin islands (disputed between Russia & Japan), some rock off the coast of Marocco

You forget Kashmir disputed between India, Pakistan and China.

Originally posted by Amenhotep7
Mesopotamia, hands down.

Let's see, it was occupied by:

-Sumer
-Babylon
-Persia
-Greeks
-Parthians
-Romans
-Britain
-Ottoman Empire
-Mongols
-Iraq
-America
-Arabia
-Medea

What am I forgetting? I just know I'm forgetting somebody!

The Hyksos
Akkad
Assyria
The Hittites
The Seljuk Turks
The Byzantine Empire
The Seleucid Empire
The Mamelukes

Dividing the Arabs:

The Umayyad Caliphate
The Abbasid Caliphate

Dividing the Persians:

The Persian Empire (pre-Alexander)
The Sassanid Empire (post-Parthia)

There were probably others, too.

Originally posted by Ossric
@Xen & @SeleucusNicator

have you read what i said about the difference of a conquered territory & a disputed territory?

yes, and in the bronze age, there were several hundred (mind only a few of them were major powers, but as seperate entities, there were hundres of autonomous, and semi-autonomous political units) of smaal state clamouring to conqoure thier homeland to unite it- but either way, i disagree with your definition of ddisputed anyway- it snot merelly if someone claims it as thier homalnd- its if a war broke out over it- that is the classic definition of disputed in topics such as this- though again, it dosent matter- th elow lands of europe are sparse of conflict and political disputation when it comes to very land in which civilization itself arose.

Originally posted by allhailIndia
What about Afghanistan or does it come under Transoxania?

A whole range of ruler going back to the Greeks and the Mauryans have had claims over it.

Afghanistan is not a part of Transoxiana.

Isreal and Iraq.