The imperial residue of overseas territories

SINCE 1946, the United Nations has compiled a list of the world's “Non-Self-Governing Territories”: overseas domains it considers, in effect, to be colonies. Since then 100-odd entries have come and gone. Leavers may gain full independence (such as Cameroon or Singapore) or merge more or less fully with their parent nation (Puerto Rico or French Guiana). Today the number of entries has dwindled to just 15, most of which are British, or 16 if you include ambiguous Western Sahara.

Only three of the remaining listings are the subject of conflicting claims by other nations. Two are British-ruled; the third is Western Sahara. The dispute between Britain and Argentina over sovereign rights to the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) turned into war in 1982. It flared up this month with the publication of tit-for-tat open letters in national newspapers. Britain's Foreign Office has also recently complained to the Spanish government over incursions into Gibraltar's territorial waters. Achieving self-determination through referenda for both territories was listed as a priority in the British Government’s mid-term review on January 7th. The Falkland Islanders are due to vote in March. 

Such territorial disputes usually centre on history and the inhabitants' choice of national identity, but also geography: the territory's proximity to the claimant's national boundaries and its distance from the “occupying country’s” shores. As the graphic below demonstrates, the distances between administrative capitals and their listed territories are indeed vast. The Falkland Islands' capital Stanley lies some 12,650 km from London. Luckily for Britain and other former imperial powers, proximity is not the defining factor in deciding rightful rule (and if it were, the entire UN list of territories—and previous versions—would be up for grabs).

The UN lists only inhabited territory. A host of other, unpopulated, territories would be open to scrutiny on grounds of proximity, or lack of it: swathes of Antarctica for example. Norway's Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic is the most remote island on the planet, lying furthest from any other land mass. But at a meagre 12,700 km from Oslo it cannot compete with some inhabited British, French or American islands for the furthest distance from the motherland.