As the only country among the four ancient civilizations in the world whose cultural inheritance has not been broken, China has stood at the peak of the human world for more than 3,000 years in the long history of 5,000 years.
However, due to the decay of the late Qing Dynasty, since the Opium War began in 1840, China has ushered in a dark period of more than 100 years in modern history.
During this period, due to the weakening of national strength and the cowardice of the Qing Dynasty, he was forced to sign many humiliating and unequal treaties with the great powers.
The signing of these treaties has not only deepened the exploitation of hundreds of millions of Chinese people, but also caused China to lose a large area of territory.
In addition to Japan, there are also many countries that have lost their land due to various reasons in history.
So, today, let's take stock of the five countries with the most serious territorial losses in modern history, and see who they are and how they lost these territories
Today, China has a vast territory of 9.6 million square kilometers, making it the third largest country in the world.
However, two hundred years ago, our country once had a much larger land than it does today.
In 1840, the Western powers launched the Opium War against China, and because the late Qing Dynasty had been adopting a policy of closing the country for more than two hundred years, China's development at that time lagged far behind the Western world.
So in this war, it also ushered in a painful defeat.
From then on, until the founding of the People's Republic of China, for more than 100 years, China gradually degenerated into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
Later, after the successive defeats in the Second Opium War, the First Sino-Japanese War, and the Eight-Nation Alliance's War of Aggression against China, the cowardly late Qing Dynasty began to sign one unequal treaty after another with the foreign powers, and successively ceded Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Outer Mongolia, Outer Northeast and other places.
Although after the founding of the People's Republic of China, it did its best to successfully recover some of the land, but due to historical and international circumstances, it was difficult for more land to return to the embrace of the motherland.
According to statistics, in modern times, China has lost more than 3.3 million square kilometers of territory, which accounts for more than 25% of the original territory.
Such a painful lesson also teaches future generations to be independent and self-reliant, strive to develop the country, and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation at an early date.
The fourth place may come as a surprise, as Russia is now the world's largest country in terms of territory, spanning the Eurasian continent with an area of more than 17 million square kilometers, nearly twice the size of our country.
How could such a huge area be included in this list?
As everyone knows, in history, the Russian Empire, which once succeeded the Mongol Empire, once covered an area of more than 25 million square kilometers.
Even after decades of civil war, Tsarist Russia fell apart, and by the time the Soviet Union was founded, it still covered an area of about 22.88 million square kilometers.
However, with the Soviet Union's succession, more than 5.8 million square kilometers of land were divided among the remaining 14 member states, while Russia lost about 28 percent of its territory.
The third "candidate" is also very incredible, China and Russia are very influential powers, both now and in history.
And as a "small border country" next to the United States, how can Mexico be on this list?
In fact, before the 19th century, Mexico was one of the largest countries in the Americas.
Later, in the course of the expansion of the United States, there were several wars with Mexico.
In these wars, Mexico successively lost several large states in the north, such as California, Texas, and Arizona, and lost more than one million square kilometers of territory, which was more than 50% of the total area of Mexico at that time.
During the Napoleonic period, the First French Empire defeated Austria, Prussia, Portugal and other countries in succession at the Battle of Austerlitz (1805) and the Battle of Friedland (1807), extending France's influence to the whole of Europe.
However, in the war against Russia, due to the rash advance and too deep of the enemy, it eventually led to defeat.
At the time of Napoleon's second rise, he suffered a major defeat at Waterloo and was finally exiled, which made France lose a large area of land it had originally occupied.
As the first of the Western powers to rise through the Industrial Revolution, Britain became the first "global hegemon" in modern history.
At the height of Britain's power, its colonies expanded to all parts of the globe, spanning four oceans and covering six continents, with the name "The Sun Never Sets Empire".
However, with the two industrial revolutions and two world wars, the countries of the world caught up, and Britain gradually lost its dominance over its overseas colonies.
Coupled with the extremely painful price paid in the war, the national strength was greatly depleted, and in the end Britain had to abandon almost all its colonies and resettle on the island of Great Britain on its own soil.