If you peruse the social studies side of the YouTube education sphere (which honestly is
probably how you discovered my channel, let’s be honest) you’ve probably seen videos about
the overseas territories of France or the Netherlands or the US.
Whenever I see any of these videos however, I start to wonder how many other countries
have these such territories… and that’s pretty much how I came up with this video.
So first, how are we defining overseas territories?
Basically, we’re going to be relying on the term “dependent territory”, but making
sure they’re separated from the home country by a good deal of water, which would immediately
disqualify one of the countries on Wikipedia’s article on the subject, which would be China
with its Special Administrative Regions Hong Kong and Macau.
Sorry guys, maybe in another video, in fact I actually made a video on Hong Kong when
I went there back in May.
What do I mean by “territories” though?
Well, basically a piece of land that is kind of part of a country enough so that it can’t
be considered independent, but not integrated enough to be like one of their core dependencies.
For example, Hong Kong lies on a spectrum of being in China, somewhere between being
like Shanghai-- which is absolutely part of China-- and Mexico City-- which is absolutely
not part of China.
Is Hong Kong in China?
Kind of, I’d say yes and no.
Could you get yourself into a fistfight if you ask this question to the wrong people?
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay so now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way, let’s go through this country-by-country.
First, let’s go down to Australia, the land of vegemite, constant jokes about being upside
down, and physics YouTubers.
Now Australia differentiates between internal territories (those being Northern Territory,
Australian Capital Territory, and Jervis Bay Territory) and external territories, which
are what we are interested in today.
The inhabited external territories are Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk
Island, while the uninhabited islands are Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Coral Sea Islands,
Heard Island & McDonald Islands, and the Australian Antarctic Territory (depending on who you
ask).
Although it’s highly debatable whether or not external territories should count as “core
Australia”, the territories aren’t really governed any differently from the mainland
territories, with the exception of immigration law.
The main difference between Australia’s states and territories however have to do
with local governance, as the states all have their own constitutions and governmental structures,
while much of the legislation in the territories is more up to the federal government.
Next we have Denmark, with its constituent countries of Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
I already talked a bit about these guys in my video about constituent countries, but
these two countries are not sovereign countries, but are instead part of what is known as the
Danish Realm.
The Faroe Islands and Greenland have essentially been part of Denmark since the advent of the
Kalmar Union in 1397, but due to their high degree of cultural differences with Denmark
proper their local governance generally leans away from Copenhagen in basically every way
except foreign affairs and defense (things that countries each with a population of around
50,000 might need some help with), although even this is somewhat up for debate at times.
Finland just has one such detached territory, Åland.
The Åland Islands belong to Finland due to a complex web of alliances and land grabs
throughout history.
Åland is deemed separate from Finland in most ways, even though Finland officially
has full sovereignty over the islands, which by the way speak Swedish more often than Finnish,
just in case you were wondering why they were in so complex of a situation.
Now we reach a country known for holding onto former colonial territories for arguably way
too long, France.
WonderWhy has a great video about this oh-so complicated situation, but I’ll try to summarize
it in a way that’ll fit into this paragraph.
First, French Guiana does not count on this list, as it is actually an overseas department
and region of France, so it’s kind of like Hawaii is to the rest of the US.
This is also the same with Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Mayotte.
These territories are also part of the EU and Eurozone, but not the Schengen Area, so
you will have to bring a passport but you won’t have to go to a currency exchange.
By the way, unlike German I don’t speak French, so of course my pronunciation of these
names is going to suck.
But no, what we are interested in are France’s overseas territories.
To cut it short, there are the overseas collectivities of Saint Barthélemy, Collectivity of Saint
Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Wallis and Futuna, and French Polynesia, all with
a more autonomous status from Paris than the overseas regions.
There’s also New Caledonia, which is kind of teetering on the edge of being a country,
so much so that they recently had a referendum on whether or not they wanted to do that,
but right now they don’t so that’s that.
There are also a couple uninhabited territories, but this section is really pushing us for
time, so please check out the WonderWhy video if you want to learn more about all these
islands, they’re actually really interesting.
Next we have a somewhat easier country: the Netherlands, which is actually surprisingly
simple for being a European power that also didn’t quite clean up after itself very
well.
Really the one place outside Europe still part of the Netherlands is the Dutch Caribbean,
including the cities of Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius-- which are just normal Dutch
cities, just flung out into the middle of the Caribbean for some reason, and not part
of any province-- and the constituent countries of Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten (not
to be confused with the French collectivity).
This is where it becomes important to distinguish between the Netherlands and the Kingdom of
the Netherlands, of which the Netherlands is also a constituent country, much like the
case with Denmark.
New Zealand has two territories and two associated countries.
Of the territories there is the Ross Dependency in Antarctica and the island of Tokelau.
Tokelau administers a lot of its own laws but being part of the Realm of New Zealand
their residents are entitled to New Zealand citizenship and defense.
The Cook Islands and Niue are, as associated nations, in a somewhat similar position.
They are each in charge of their own laws and policies, however their citizens are also
entitled to New Zealand citizenship and defense, but New Zealand can only exercise this control
at their request.
Norway is going to be really easy: there’s Bouvet Island, Peter I Island, and Queen Maud
Land, all of which are controlled directly from the Polar Affairs Department in Oslo
since literally no one lives on these islands.
Granted I suppose I could also bring up Svalbard, since I know people will probably want to
bring it up.
Svalbard is not an overseas territory like all the other places I’ve been talking about,
but is fully part of Norway.
However it operates slightly differently from Norway proper as it has an unlimited visa-free
policy, meaning that basically anyone can live and work as long as they want there,
just as long as they don’t bring any tanks considering that it is a demilitarized zone.
If Norway was easy to talk about though, the next two definitely won’t be.
The United Kingdom has really too many overseas territories for me to name here, but these
little islands and archipelagos are all self-governing (except in foreign affairs and defense of
course) and are not part of the United Kingdom or the European Union (with the exception
of Gibraltar).
The UK also administers a separate passport simply known as the British National (Overseas)
Passport, however these are really just used for Hong Kong residents who lived in Hong
Kong before the handover in 1997, and entitle them to diplomatic protection from the UK
though they are merely UK nationals and not citizens.
Finally the United States also has a complex web of territories in the Caribbean and Pacific,
which of course we all learn about by… not.
These most notably include Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands (which actually drives on
the left, fun fact), Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa.
These territories, as well as numerous others, are really 100% American in every way possible
and American laws, culture, currency, etc. are all used in these territories (though
American Samoans are American nationals not citizens, and some of these territories do
have their own immigration and visa policies that will require you to bring a passport
if travelling from the states).
So those are pretty much all the countries out there with oversea territories.
If you want to learn more feel free to check out some video links I’ve put in the description
for more detailed explanations of these territories, as well as the Wikipedia articles that made
up my sources.
Now many of these territories are essentially remnants of the colonial empires that many
of these nations once commanded, and some were the only territories they could get.
However just as these empires lost their various colonies, surely you don’t want to lose
your privacy, which is why NordVPN has partnered with us to offer KhAnubis viewers an amazing
deal on their services.
NordVPN, for those of you who haven’t heard, is an online VPN that safeguards your internet
connection from hackers and surveillance mainly by disguising your IP Address, which also
gives you the bonus benefit of being able to change what country’s internet you’re
connected to, which is nice if you live in a country with particularly restrictive internet.
NordVPN is offering KhAnubis viewers a special holiday discount, 81% off a 3-year plan with
4 additional months *and* their NordPass password manager app, but only if you go to nordvpn.org/khanubis
or use the code “khanubis” at checkout.
Thanks as always for watching, and thanks for a great end to the 2010s!
I hope you enjoyed this video (if you did, please of course like, share, and subscribe)
and I will see you in the 2020s!
Oh god that’s weird to think about.