What If The Dutch Empire Reunited Today

the kingdom of the netherlands a reasonably small country in today's central europe whose only other possessions today are three caribbean islands corazon aruba and sint martin with a population of around 17.4 million people but the dutch overseas possessions were much larger throughout history and they once had a significant role as one of the main european colonizer powers the map i used on the thumbnail and the one here is a little misleading because it is an anachronist map this means that these are all the possessions the dutch empire had at any time overlapped meaning they never held all of these at the same time but still for the purpose of this video and to make it more interesting i'm going to follow the idea that all lands which were at any time under dutch rule decided to reunite in current days it would spread across almost all continents in the world from new amsterdam in north america to the dutch guianas dutch brazil and territories in today's ghana south africa india sri lanka indonesia and taiwan not to mention the many many trade outposts they established throughout the african coast india southeast asia china and japan and some apparently even in the coast of chile in south america on top of that we also have to assume that their rule over the benelux region would also have maintained itself or would once again be a reality and they would therefore also rule belgium and luxembourg in europe now it goes without saying that this scenario is absolutely and totally impossible this is definitely just a what-if hypothetical scenario with no likelihood of ever happening but i think it's interesting and fun to think about especially because looking at the union of the territories with our current reality allows us to understand the size and dimension that certain empires in this case the dutch really had at their peak before checking how the renewed empire would be like in modern days let's quickly summarize how the dutch empire came to be and how it reached all of these places the dutch empire divided itself into two areas the east indies in oceania and asia and the west indies in america africa i think was divided along the two it also divided itself into two methods throughout both of these areas the establishment of true colonies with large territorial rule and the mere establishment of trade factories or fortresses to use the trade routes and have a presence in those regions so let's take a quick look region by region to understand which areas they ruled and which areas would now become a part of the empire again should the impossible ever happen in africa most of their presence was through these trait factories essentially military and economical outposts that existed throughout the african coast however they did have some territorial exploration and colonies per se in south africa they briefly ruled the cape of good hope and surrounding areas before losing them to the british in west africa they held the dutch gold coast in ghana a part of angola senegal and the island of arguin off the coast of mauritania in east africa they controlled the island of mauritius near madagascar in asia their presence was gigantic and although it was also mainly through trading posts they also held significant land the most obvious cases are indonesia of course ceylon and taiwan but they also had actual colonies in india coromandel and its coast was the major dutch colony on the mainland it grew from the fort at pulikot captured from the portuguese in 1609 in fact many of the dutch colonies throughout america africa or asia were captured and taken from the portuguese in most if not all cases during the time when spain briefly ruled portugal the dutch were at war with the spanish and since the spanish cared more about their own empire than the portuguese one they left portuguese colonies mostly undefended and the dutch took the opportunity to seize them the rest of their asian empire consisted mostly of those trading outposts in iraq iran pakistan yemen bangladesh oman burma thailand malaysia cambodia vietnam china and also madagascar so i don't know how any of these would now join a modern dutch empire since their presence in those regions was mostly a group of buildings maybe the city in which they were in could join and the empire would have a network of small city-states throughout the world in america they also had significant possessions new netherlands consisted of parts of today's u.s regions of albany and the state of new york and the city of new york itself in manhattan at the time knew amsterdam they also ruled the dutch and teals in the caribbean and this would today give them ownership of many islands although they still currently have some of them saint martin the virgin islands aruba curacao and tobago would be among these in south america they held suriname part of guyana and new holland which was dutch brazil again a group of territories captured during the iberian union it's interesting because this capture was a part of a plan the dutch had called the grand design in which they aimed to capture strategic locations from the portuguese and spanish in order to control the main trade goods and routes such as sugar for instance thus eliminating spanish profits and making it so that they would have no money to continue the war against them it's a smart strategy even if your enemy has a much stronger army and navy than you you don't need to defeat it in combat you just need to make sure the army collapses through any other mean such as lack of money to sustain it there were also brief expeditions and trading posts in chile back in europe they would hold belgium and luxembourg and in oceania they also apparently had a claim on western australia and tasmania although no real attempt of colonization was ever made a lot of places along the australian coast have dutch names and tasmania used to be called van diemen's land so if this impossible scenario were to happen it's hard to tell how all of these regions would now become part of the same empire the entire countries which they ruled sure those could become a part of it sri lanka taiwan indonesia luxembourg belgium and all the islands in the caribbean and elsewhere but what about the partial possessions they had with the state of new york and albany suddenly joined them or only part of the state and would the other partial possessions in brazil south africa india angola ghana and senegal split from their own countries to join the dutch the scenario itself is already totally impossible but the logistics of it make it even more absolutely crazy and unachievable not to mention the tons of trading outposts they had i think these would just have to be ignored because otherwise there would just be small neighborhoods in each country that randomly belonged to the dutch like that weird belgian exclave that actually exists inside the netherlands so in terms of size it's very difficult to calculate exactly but this new empire would certainly become one of the top 10 countries in the world in terms of size even with just the four countries they used to rule indonesia alone is already in 14th place so it wouldn't be difficult it would also become the only country slash union in the world with possessions and a presence in four or even five continents but because of this its culture would also be incredibly different throughout the regions each place has their local identity even if there might be some small or large influence due to dutch presence at some point in their history they also have very different religions indonesia is mostly muslim while the netherlands are protestant and some other territories are roman catholic now a lot of countries have diverse religions within them even some of this list and in secular states it really doesn't matter which religion each person chooses to follow because it doesn't as it shouldn't affect state policy in terms of population it's also difficult to point out a specific number they would have because for instance i have no idea how much population this portion of brazil's coast has or these two slices of india we can however do that with indonesia taiwan sri lanka suriname belgium and luxembourg in europe alone they would rule over 29 million people adding the others that number would go up to around 340 of which indonesia contributes the most to if we then take into account the westlands brazil south africa and india i think we would be somewhat correct to assume this new dutch empire would easily reach the mark of 400 million people as its population making it the third most populous country in the world ahead of the united states and behind only china and india in terms of military at least active and reserved soldiers in number they would become one of the strongest in the world as well these full nations alone would account for over 2 million soldiers mostly from taiwan and indonesia the dutch actually have similar rates of soldiers per capita to taiwan they just have a smaller population and thus a smaller army speaking of per capita the gdp per capita of this empire would be incredibly misleading because it would just average out the result of all member countries the netherlands currently ranks 12th in highest gdp per capita and luxembourg is actually number two while indonesia is at 92 in sri lanka at 95 the empire would become an economic powerhouse yes but with great regional differences in both the power of local economies and the quality of life slash income of its population in terms of total gdp it's also difficult to measure if we take into account the four countries they would have a very large gdp indonesia the benelux taiwan sri lanka and suriname would total at around six trillion dollars making it the world's fifth largest economy behind only china the eu the usa and india and ahead of japan germany and russia if we were to add the partial regions of brazil the usa india and south africa that number would probably grow even more i mean new york alone has a gdp of 1.7 trillion so all these other territories put together might be enough for this modern dutch empire to overcome india's 10 trillion a year economy the trading outposts throughout the world might also help them in the establishment of commercial deals in each of those areas contributing to a higher result however there's also another interesting dimension to this idea the dutch empire's rule like i mentioned was divided between the dutch west india and the dutch east india companies chartered companies with merchants and investors who had the monopoly of trade in their respective areas and a renewed dutch empire could wave the idea of a territorial rule entirely and simply focus on creating a new dutch trading company which established businesses and financial rule over those areas through the purchasing and sale of goods and services instead of giving up these straight post locations because they would be impossible to integrate into a new empire they could give up the other full territories and just focus on these trading posts in a completely unlikely or fully impossible scenario of this renewed empire existing i think this option would at least make it 0.00001 possible another option would be a union between these territories so not a situation where they are put under dutch rule but one where they simply use their common even if troubled and conflictuous history to now join up under an international union in which they all have equal power after all the origins of the dutch republic were a federation of 17 provinces the imperial states of the habsburg netherlands which in 1582 seceded from spanish rule so maybe we could have a new federation of the probably around 100 provinces although those shared a common dutch culture and common desire of wanting independence from the spanish and this common identity and goal isn't the case with the current territories and the current time so that was a brief overview of the territories and regions which the dutch empire controlled throughout its existence via their empire both in europe and throughout the world and how it would be today if all those regions spread across the world suddenly decided to again become united under the rule of the dutch under common rule or under any other type of partnership how it would include territories in almost every continent taking the role of one of the world's most powerful entities depending on their choice of union the flag would vary from simply the dutch one as it was with their old empire a flag for a new trading company inspired in the colonial ones or a brand new flag representing each country member of a new union in which they were all equal thanks so much for watching this video if you liked it subscribe to catch future ones most of the videos i make are about history or current events but i also like making these what-if scenarios so if you have any suggestions for other topics just let me know in the comments below this topic itself was a suggestion from someone so i might do yours as well either way i will see you next time for more general knowledge

Channel: General Knowledge

Views: 441,695

Keywords: generalknowledge, funwithflags, countriesthatdon'texist

Id: Bql--oQUGik

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 09 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Sjobenrit]

0/10, no great Brittain

[u/VOLKSOPSTAAAAAND]

Geen Smeerenburg op Spitsbergen 0/10

[u/CoutoFireMan]

Portugal says you've landed on the wrong side of South America

[u/Tigresoul]

Video looks very slick and well produced, but I take issue with us ‘possessing’ 3 islands. We don’t ‘own’ them, they’re part of the kingdom. Just phrasing, but I think it’s important :)