Colony
Overview
 
In politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 and history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...

. For colonies in antiquity
Colonies in antiquity
Colonies in antiquity were city-states founded from a mother-city—its "metropolis"—, not from a territory-at-large. Bonds between a colony and its metropolis remained often close, and took specific forms...

, city-state
City-state
A city-state is an independent or autonomous entity whose territory consists of a city which is not administered as a part of another local government.-Historical city-states:...

s would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception. The metropolitan
Metropolis
A metropolis is a very large city or urban area which is a significant economic, political and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections and communications...

 state is the state that owns the colony. In Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

, the city that founded a colony was called the metropolis. Mother country is a reference to the metropolitan state from the point of view of citizens who live in its colony.
Timeline

1583    Sir Humphrey Gilbert establishes the first English colony in North America, at what is now St John's, Newfoundland.

1607    Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony.

1619    38 colonists from Berkeley Parish in England disembark in Virginia and give thanks to God (this is considered by many to be the first Thanksgiving in the Americas).

1682    William Penn receives the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania.

1683    William Penn brings 13 German immigrant families to the colony of Pennsylvania, marking the first major immigration of German people to America.

1784    Russia establishes a colony at Kodiak, Alaska.

1840    The transporting of British convicts to the New South Wales colony is abolished.

1856    The colonial Tasmanian Parliament passes the second piece of legislation (the Electoral Act of 1856) anywhere in the world providing for elections by way of a secret ballot.

1890    Eritrea is consolidated into a colony by the Italian government.

1910    Japan changes Korea's name to ''Chōsen'' and appoints a governor-general to rule its new colony.

 
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