Which Countries Are Still Colonies Today?

The UN Special Committee on Decolonization, commonly called the Committee of 24, recognises 17 Non-Self-Governing Territories in 2026, home to approximately 2 million people according to UN summary figures published in 2024. Ten are administered by the United Kingdom, three by the United States, two by New Zealand and one by France; Western Sahara is listed without a currently recognised administering power.

Administering or occupying state	UN-listed territories in 2026	Number
United Kingdom	Anguilla; Bermuda; British Virgin Islands; Cayman Islands; Falkland Islands/Malvinas; Gibraltar; Montserrat; Pitcairn; Saint Helena; Turks and Caicos Islands	10
United States	American Samoa; Guam; US Virgin Islands	3
New Zealand	Tokelau	1
France	New Caledonia	1
Morocco occupies most of the territory; UN status unresolved	Western Sahara	1
Administered by the United Kingdom but claimed by Mauritius	British Indian Ocean Territory/Chagos Archipelago	1

“Colony” remains politically and analytically useful, but dependency is the more common legal-administrative term: a territory outside the administering state’s integral constitutional area that lacks full sovereign control. Constitutional variation does not erase the decisive issue—who controls defence, foreign affairs, constitutional authority or final legislative power.

Chapter XI of the UN Charter established duties toward peoples “whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government.” Administering powers must report information and promote political, economic and educational development.

“Members of the United Nations which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognise the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount.” — United Nations, 1945, Charter of the United Nations, Article 73

UN General Assembly Resolution 1514, adopted in 1960 by 89 votes to 0, with 9 abstentions, declared that colonial subjection violates fundamental human rights. Resolution 1541, also adopted in 1960, set out three recognised outcomes: independence, free association or integration—provided the choice is informed and freely expressed.

The list is evidence of an incomplete legal process, not a complete census of colonial power. Puerto Rico was removed in 1953 after the United States reported that its 1952 Commonwealth constitution made further Article 73 reporting unnecessary. French Polynesia was reinscribed in 2013. New Caledonia’s independence referendums produced 56.7% against independence in 2018, 53.3% against in 2020, and 96.5% against in 2021; pro-independence parties boycotted the 2021 vote after requesting postponement during the COVID-19 mourning period.

There is no universally accepted scholarly total because researchers count different legal and political relationships. The narrow UN figure is 17 in 2026. The CIA’s World Factbook catalogue has generally separated approximately 50–60 dependencies, special-sovereignty areas and miscellaneous territories in editions from 2023–2025, but that classification includes uninhabited possessions and does not label all of them colonies. Counts also change when territories such as Antarctica’s overlapping claims are included.

Approach or source	Approximate total	Reference year	What it counts
UN decolonisation list	17	2026	Formally designated Non-Self-Governing Territories
UN list excluding uninhabited territories	15	2026	Excludes Pitcairn’s tiny settled population only if “substantial population” tests are imposed, and the uninhabited Chagos population after forced removal; this is analytical, not UN practice
CIA World Factbook geographic categories	About 50–60	2023–2025	Dependencies, overseas areas and special-sovereignty territories, including uninhabited possessions
Critical colonial analysis	No fixed total	2026	Adds places where sovereignty is constrained by occupation, imposed constitutional authority or external economic control

The range broadens when scholars include Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, Greenland, Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, the Faroe Islands, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, and France’s overseas departments. Some have extensive self-government or metropolitan citizenship; none independently controls every sovereign function.

The most defensible answer is therefore 17 under the UN’s formal test, and roughly 50–60 under broad dependency inventories in 2023–2025—not a claim that every case has the same history or legal status.

Territorial rule also intersects with neocolonialism: formally independent states may face coercive debt, military basing or foreign corporate control without being legal colonies. Those mechanisms belong in the archive’s account of ongoing exploitation, but they should not be conflated with territorial administration.

Administering governments often argue that “colony” ignores citizenship, elected legislatures, fiscal support and locally endorsed constitutional arrangements. The United Kingdom calls its possessions British Overseas Territories, a designation established by the British Overseas Territories Act 2002. France treats several possessions as constitutionally integrated collectivities or departments. The United States calls Puerto Rico a Commonwealth and Guam an unincorporated territory.

Local opinion is not uniform. In the Falkland Islands/Malvinas referendum of 2013, 1,513 of 1,517 valid votes—99.8%—favoured retaining British Overseas Territory status; Argentina rejected the referendum because it regards the islands as Argentine territory occupied by Britain. Gibraltar’s 2002 referendum rejected shared British-Spanish sovereignty by 17,900 votes, or 98.5%, against 187.

These votes establish contemporary preferences under existing conditions, not a universal rule that colonial history has ended. Indigenous peoples, displaced communities and independence movements challenge who constitutes the electorate. Britain expelled approximately 1,500–2,000 Chagossians between 1968 and 1973, estimates used by Human Rights Watch and Chagossian advocates; descendants were excluded from residence and voting on the islands. In 2019, the International Court of Justice held by 13 judges to 1 that Britain’s administration of the Chagos Archipelago was unlawful and should end “as rapidly as possible.” Britain and Mauritius announced a sovereignty agreement in 2024, then signed a treaty in 2025 providing for Mauritian sovereignty while allowing the UK-US Diego Garcia base to continue under a 99-year lease.

Western Sahara exposes the sharpest dispute. Morocco controls roughly 80% of the territory, while the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, proclaimed by the Polisario Front in 1976, controls much of the remainder. The UN mission created in 1991 has still not delivered the promised self-determination referendum. Resource extraction from occupied or dependent territories is part of the wider structure documented under ongoing exploitation and neocolonies.

The classification creates obligations, not merely vocabulary. Administering powers must respect self-determination, report under Article 73 where the UN requires it, and avoid exploiting land or resources contrary to the interests of the territory’s people. A legitimate outcome may be independence, free association or integration; international law does not require independence where a people freely chooses another status.

The practical questions are therefore specific: Who can amend the constitution? Who controls borders, defence and seabed resources? Can the population choose every status option? Were displaced people allowed to return? Was consent obtained without military pressure, demographic engineering or economic coercion?

The remaining territories also carry strategic assets disproportionate to their populations: the US bases on Guam, Britain’s Gibraltar facilities, the UK-US base on Diego Garcia, French influence in the Pacific and fisheries across vast exclusive economic zones. Decolonisation consequently concerns military power, land, migration and revenue—not flags alone. Formal territorial rule must also be analysed alongside neocolonial control, while preserving the legal distinction between dependency and an independent state subjected to ongoing exploitation.

• United Nations: The United Nations and Decolonization
• United Nations Charter, Chapter XI
• UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV), 1960
• International Court of Justice: Chagos Archipelago advisory opinion, 2019
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Western colonialism
• CIA World Factbook: Countries and territories