How did countries begin and how were the boundaries set?

Question

What were some of the first countries.? Did they begin in Europe? What about the colonies of the USA? how did the boundaries get established?

Answer 1

All different ways.  One of the oldest standing "countries" is Ethiopia, which has been around since about 1000 B.C.

As for the American colonies, most were chartered to corporations or English nobles by the king.  A few others were for Puritan refugees.

In most cases, the boundaries were where ethnic groups settled and carved out a tiny kingdom to call their own.  A lot of modern countries in Asia and Africa were once colonies conquered by the British or French Empires which gained independence after WWII.  Sometimes the boundaries were by cultural boundary, but sometimes not.  In the Middle East, for example, they made the boundaries somewhat random and ignored the ethnic groups living there.  That is why there is so much violence there now.

But I can't tell you just one way how it happened.  It's really on a country-to-country basis.

Answer 2

Foreigners landed on the beaches armed to the teeth with advanced weapons meeting little resistance, fortified a base camp, and from there went on hunting missions to massacre the native populations. They assumed the ancient boundaries of the tribes once they defeated them. From there any addition lands and borders were either continued through conquest or land purchases. Native populations were displaced and hunted like vermin. The land was divided, cities were built, where armies could be had from the breeding populations. Weapons technology triggered an arms race between continents. Larger wars commenced over ethic fear and ignorance. Armaments were developed to the point of mass nuclear caches on opposing sides to prevent invasion and colonization. Now we are on the second cold war period about to initiate Armageddon all because of the dumb political logic of liberty, autonomy, power, exploitation, domination, bureaucracy, the new world order, opulence, and greed.