Colonies in the context of "Swedish overseas colonies"

The French Empire (French: Empire français; Latin: Imperium Francicum), known retroactively as the First French Empire, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from 18 May 1804 to 6 April 1814 and again briefly from 20 March 1815 to 7 July 1815, when Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena.

Historians refer to Napoleon's regime as the "First Empire" to distinguish it from the restorationist Second Empire (1852–1870) ruled by his nephew Napoleon III. Neither should be confused with the French colonial empire, which refers to France's various colonies, protectorates and mandate territories all throughout its history, regardless of political system (including, by some definitions, some or all of France's current overseas territories).

The genocide of indigenous peoples, colonial genocide, or settler genocide is the elimination of indigenous peoples as a part of the process of colonialism.

According to certain genocide experts, including Raphael Lemkin – who coined the term – colonialism is intimately connected with genocide. Lemkin saw genocide as a two-stage process: (1) the destruction of the targeted group's way of life, followed by (2) the perpetrators' imposition of their own national pattern. Other scholars view genocide as associated with but distinct from settler colonialism. The expansion of various Western European colonial powers such as the British and Spanish empires and the subsequent establishment of colonies on indigenous territories frequently involved acts of genocidal violence against indigenous groups in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created in 1768 from the Southern Department to deal with colonial affairs in North America (particularly the Thirteen Colonies, as well as the Canadian territories recently won from France), until merged into the new Home Office in 1782. In 1801, colonial affairs were transferred to the War Office in the lead up to the Napoleonic Wars, which became the War and Colonial Office to oversee and protect the colonies of the British Empire. The Colonial Office was re-created as a separate department 1854, under the colonial secretary. It was finally merged into the Commonwealth Office in 1966.

Despite its name, the Colonial Office was responsible for much, but not all, of Britain's Imperial territories; the protectorates fell under the purview of the Foreign Office, and the British Presidencies in India were ruled by the East India Company until 1858, when the India Office was formed to oversee the administration of the new Viceroyalty of India (the Crown ruled India directly through a Viceroy after the Indian Rebellion), while the role of the Colonial Office in the affairs of the Dominions was replaced by the Dominion Office in 1925.

The Italian colonial empire (Italian: Impero coloniale italiano), sometimes known as the Italian Empire (Impero italiano), was a colonial empire that existed between 1882 and 1960. It comprised the colonies, protectorates, concessions and dependencies of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th and 20th centuries. At its peak, between 1936 and 1941, the colonial empire in Africa included the territories of present-day Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia (the last three being officially named "Africa Orientale Italiana", AOI); outside Africa, Italy possessed the Dodecanese Islands (following the Italo-Turkish War), Albania (initially a protectorate, then in personal union from 1939 to 1943) and also had some concessions in China.

The Fascist government that came to power under the leadership of the dictator Benito Mussolini after 1922 sought to increase the size of the Italian empire and it also sought to satisfy the claims of Italian irredentists. Systematic "demographic colonization" was encouraged by the government, and by 1939, Italian settlers numbered 120,000–150,000 in Italian Libya and 165,000 in Italian East Africa.

The Portuguese-speaking African countries (Portuguese: Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa; PALOP), also known as Lusophone Africa, consist of six African countries in which the Portuguese language is an official language: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and, since 2011, Equatorial Guinea. The six countries are former colonies of the Portuguese Empire. From 1778 until independence, Equatorial Guinea was also a colony of the Spanish Empire.

In 1992, the five Lusophone African countries formed an interstate organisation called PALOP, a colloquial acronym that translates to "African Countries of Portuguese Official Language" (Portuguese: Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa). The PALOP countries have signed official agreements with Portugal, the European Union and the United Nations, and they work together to promote the development of culture, education and the preservation of the Portuguese language.