[OFF] How old is your country?

[Henri Christophe]

1st: Where are you from?
2nd: How old is your country?

Don't need to be a precise age, just an idea.

For example:
I'm from Brazil, Brazil is ~500 years old.

Why I'm asking that? I had a roommate from Colombia, and one time he was tolding me the Colombia is the oldest country in Latin-America, because the Simon Bolivar was the first to achieve the indepence there around ~200 years ago. I just desagree because in Brazil we was taught our nation begins in 22/Abril/1500 when the first Portuguese navigator arrive in the coast of Brazil, and just to be sure of that, we walk on the street asking many people we can this simple question: "How old is Brazil?" 99% answer ~500 years old and one guy answered "Brazil ever existed".

I was recently working in Mexico and I made the same question for the Mexicans, and most of Mexicans remember the indepence of Mexico as the birth-moment of the Mexican Nation. Just a few said about the Spanish arriving or the foundation of Mexico-Tenochititlan by the Mexica people in Mexico valley.

Now I'm quite curious about how other nations understand they self, their own age, and their own history.

 

[Kwami]

I'm from the USA. Our country is traditionally 243 years old (since 1776), though some of the first settlements were in the 1500s.

 

[Aurelesk]

I am French and live in French Guiana (South America).

French Guiana is part of France and fully integrated, so this is kind of complicated.

The birth of european nation is kind of hard to do. Because people lived on the lands way before the notion of nation was even a thing. France is no exception:
○ The Gauls was more how the Romans calls the lands but no Gallic saw themselves Gallic.
○ Is it at Clovis I's baptism (496)? I mean, back them, the power was decentralised, each time the King died the kindom was divided, and Catholicism iwas just an arbitrary point in time.
○ Is it at the Treaty of Verdun (843)? Charles the Bald inherited West Francia which later became the Kingdom of France.
○ Is at the reign of Philip Augustus (1190)? When he changed its title from "King of the Franks" to "King of France"?
○ Is at the Villers-Cotterêts Ordonnance (1539)? When the french language is now the official language of the nation?
○ Is at the establishment of the Bourbon monarchy (1589) at the end of the religion wars?
○ Is it at the french Revolution (1789) that allowed to switch from monarchy to democracy? Kind of late, as the people before and after consider themselves already as french.
○ Is it after the WWII (1945), when France was conquered then liberated from the Germans?


For the French Guiana, the first french establishment was in 1503 but started to be a thing when the first city was found in 1643. It was a slave society. When France abolished slavery in 1794, french guiana transformed into penal colony until 1947! The portuguese took the region in 1809 but ceded back in 1814. There is some border dispute with Brazil, but France gained none of it. After that, the territory came to be more and more integrated to mainland france by voting against autonomy. It is now mostly the home of Space Center, as French Guiana don't really have a tourism value.

French Guiana do not really have an identity. It is a melting pot between the native (amerindians), the creole (black people with some white ancestry), the "metropolitan" (white), the marroon (most of came from Suriname fleeing the civil war), the haitian & the brazilian (mostly economic and illegal migration), the hmong (Laos refugees) and the chinese people. The official language is french, but you better know some marroon language, creole language and portuguese. So kind of complicated to think it as a nation, because it doesn't want independance.

Basicly, I don't know when France or French Guiana started to be a country. 496 & 1503 respectively are kind of misleading, and so for 1789 & 1814 respectively. I guess: kind of old?

 

[ArallanKing]

Okay this is tricky,
In game we have Indonesia which is since its independence in Aug 1945 AD, it would be 74 years old today.
However,
The Indonesian faction in Civ6 is led by Queen Tribhuwannottunggadewi Jayawishnuwardhani, which is a Majapahit monarch and the kingdom was established in 1293 AD which would make it as 726 years old today.
Moreover,
In game the faction is depicted as a Thalassocratic empire, and this idea originated from the Srivijaya kingdom which was established in the 600s AD, for that then it would be more than 1400 years old today.

So yeah, whichever you choose since the game mixed up the representation of the entities in the in-game faction lol.

 

[Tobizi]

I am German and that's tricky as well!
As the Holy Roman Empire (with Otto I. as first Emperor in 962) is seen as a German state, for me that's not all that clear as the people identified much more with their kingdom or duchie and not with a German state. In addition to that the HRR was reigned by the Austrian Habsburgers from the 15th to the 18th century (even if Austria is part of the German culture).
A real German nationalism started with/after Napoleon in the 19th century with a first climax with the Revolutions of 1848/1849. However the first modern German state was founded in 1871, dominated by Prussia.
And of course, the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949.
So long story short, German culture is about 1000 years old, modern Germany is about 170 years old and our state is 70 years old.

 

[criZp]

norway existed about a 1000 years ago, but the borders were much smaller than now (not covering all the inland and not stretching very far up north)

 

[KayAU]

Yeah...as far as I can gather, the official story is that Norway was unified in 872 AD by Harald Fairhair (Hårfagre), which means it has existed for about 1147 years. It hasn't always been an independent nation during that period, though, having been in unions with Sweden and/or Denmark for significant periods of time.

EDIT: Oh, and I'm from Norway myself.

 

[Galvatron]

No one from the New world can beat me: I'm from the Dominican Republic; and I was born in Santo Domingo: the first European settlement in the Americas. Santo Domingo is the site of the first university, cathedral, castle, monastery, and fortress in the new world.

 

[Chefofrats]

Polish history is tricky too.

Poland's recorded history goes back to the mid 10th century C.E., when prince Mieszko, founder of the Piast dynasty, conquered and united several tribes in the area. The year 966, when he officially adopted Christianity, is often given as a symbolic date of Poland's founding.

Poland's history in the 11th-13th centuries was turbulent, with periods of decline and division. In the early 14th century came reunification, which allowed Poland to become an important, regional power.

After a period of great prosperity in the 16th century, Poland was ravaged by war and internal mismanagement in the 17th century, and further decline in the 18th century lead to the country losing its independence in the 1790s, after being divided between its neighbours - Russia, Prussia and Austria.

Poland regained independence in 1918, when Germany (the successor of Prussia) and Austria-Hungary (the successor of Austria) lost WW1, and Russia was busy with its revolution.

Then came German and Soviet occupation during WW2.

In 1944 a new, socialist government was established under Soviet influence, and even though the country was formally independent, it only regained sovereignty after 1989.

Most people in Poland consider 966 and 1918 as the most important dates in Polish history, so I think it may be said Poland is 1053 years old, however in its present, independent incarnation it is 101 years old.

 

[doolar]

Götar (Geats) and Svear (Swedes) turned into a Swedish state in the 1100's. We still have parts of Sweden called "Götaland" and "Svealand" btw. But as always - it's complicated.

 

[Uberfrog]

The UK has a well-defined birthdate: the Acts of Union commenced on the 1st May 1707. So the modern country I live in is 312 years old.

Obviously the constituent nations have been around a lot longer than that. I’m English, and I think the best estimate for the beginning of England as a united country is when Æthelstan conquered Northumbria in 927 to become King of the English. Which makes my country 1092 years old, which is probably what I’d go for as my answer to the OP.

Obviously as with other medieval European states you can debate if Alfred or even an earlier king like Ecgberht or Offa can claim sovereignty over “England”. A lot of people might also argue 1066 and the beginning of the Norman monarchy, but I wouldn’t agree.

 

[Kjimmet]

I'm from Finland and it's slightly above hundred years old.

 

[Victoria]

I am from Staines (Now Staines-upon-Thames ) and I treat this city as my country. I can find pieces of knapped flint in my back yard and am quite close to a neolithic site... so perhaps my country is around 10,000 years old.

 

[Naeshar]

This is definitely off-topic, perhaps relocation would be appropriate.
Anyway, here is my 5 koruna:

Slovakia in its current form gained full independence 1.1.1993 (26 years ago), that makes it younger than me.
Of course the idea of a country is older and as such appeared in the nationalist 19th century in habsburg Austrohungary (whatever the current nomination was at the moment). After 1st world war we formed Czechoslovakia, and during 2nd world war gained autonomy and created a state more or less dependent on Nazi Germany. Nevertheless such is politics, now to the nation roots...
… they are in 9th century Great Moravia, perhaps sooner, as Slavic people moved in during the early medieval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samo. We consider these people never moved out and as such, the country is about 1400 years old. There is continuity in folk, culture, lands and that is enough. We don't need our own kings and politics to be.
Definitely older than the "new world" colonial nations. Brazil, Mexico, USA … all are recently formed immigrant nations, derived from European nations.

I may sound funny but I don't consider my country "young".

 

[Rosty K]

Ukraine. 28 years officially.

Well, depends on how you count, of course. For example, we are a Founding Member of the UN, even though it obviously happened way earlier

At various points during these 28 years our ideologists have laid claims to timelines as far as 5000 BC Well, and we kind of do like to associate the origins of our nation with Kievan Rus and/or Zaporozhian Cossacks, subject to furious b**thurt ridicule from our Polish and Russian friends Romanian and Hungarian friends also have something to say from time to time depending on the current political situation. So it's a funny place

 

[Dotsworthy]

As a Novocastrian (which directly translates as Newcastle) we have officially existed since the Roman times. However as mentioned above Æthelstan conquered nearby Northumbria I would say 1092 years old.

 

[Imaus]

I don't think gaps in independence nullify a nation.

As well, basically, how far back can you go in your nation - the territory or the people of it - and go 'I'm French, I'm Brazilian, I'm Puerto Rican, I'm American, I'm German' - and most people know and don't argue with it? With that, Americans start as early as the English Civil War or the 1750s/60s; the Puerto Ricans from around 1550, Germans - they get a closer date of around the National Liberal era of around 1848 or so. The French start between 1100 and 1400, easily.

 

[Equilin]

I'm from the East so i don't know much about Latin America, but i'd assume that Brazil didn't face a drastic change in their history since the first Portuguese landed, that they would feel the two period are different. Spanish colonies fought hard for independence, so naturally they would make a bigger deal out of it that the independent them is better and different from the colonial them.

My country is Thailand, formerly Siam. Most traditional sources dated it back to the Sukhothai Kingdom (the one in Civ5) 700-800 years ago, but I don't like that and count it at ~150 years old when King Chulalongkorn reformed the country's administrative system into a modern nation-state. Culturally it can be dated to Ayutthaya Kingdom (founded 1350) as most cultures and tradition today are legacy of Ayutthaya.

 

[Isengardtom]

Belgium became independent in 1830 after being part of the Netherlands for 15 years. before that Napoleon for a brief while and before that Austria, Spain, and split France, Burgundy, Holy Roman Empire (Germany) respectively. The mostly catholic french speaking elite wanted to secede from the Dutch speaking mostly Protestant north.

in 1830, at a diplomatic conference in London the major powers decided Belgium would be a neutral buffer between them

probably been one of the most contested areas of Europe for the last 1000-1500 years or so

 

[Ferocitus]

Australia: approx. 65,000 years.