Today, you probably associate Venice with labyrinthine canals, iconic buildings and museums packed with visitors. But before it became a tourist destination, the Most Serene Republic of Venice thrived for more than a millennium. Founded in 697, the city state grew into a hugely influential maritime and economic power, with a wealthy merchant class that spent lavish sums on beautiful art and architecture. At its peak, Venice stretched across modern-day northeast Italy plus parts of Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Cyprus.
The republic's status waned in the 18th century as new Atlantic trade routes opened up. After a series of devastating naval defeats, mostly to the Ottoman Empire, Venice was overrun by the French and the Austrians in 1797 and was then divided up between the two. Today, you can see remnants of Venetian power scattered around the former republic, including the city's lion symbol on the walls of Kotor in Montenegro and grand fortification walls in Corfu, Greece.
For more historical stories and travel inspiration, follow us on Facebook
Wedged between Spain and Portugal in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, this tiny microstate – which was just 10 square miles (27sq km) in size – operated as a free and independent nation for a staggering seven centuries. Its sovereignty was maintained by a quirk of medieval land laws, which were notoriously complex, leaving it outside the control of both countries.
Made up of three small villages (Rubias, Santiago de Rubias and Meaus) Couto Misto enjoyed all sorts of privileges, from tax-free status to freedom from military service. The special treatment was never likely to last, and the microstate was finally abolished by the Treaty of Lisbon in 1864, which awarded all three villages to Spain and a small, uninhabited patch of land to Portugal. Today, the region sits in the province of Ourense (pictured).
Located in the modern-day Czech Republic, the Kingdom of Bohemia had a huge and lasting impact on the culture and identity of the nation it now lies inside. It was established at the end of the 12th century by the royal House of Premyslid and was part of the Holy Roman Empire, a complex network of largely independent states that spanned central Europe. A succession of Bohemian kings were elected Holy Roman Emperors, and capital city Prague had multiple spells as the empire's imperial seat.
The kingdom was at its height during the so-called 'golden age' of Czech history in the 14th century, when the country prospered under the guidance of Charles IV. When the Holy Roman Empire collapsed in 1806, Bohemia was absorbed into the Austrian Empire, and survived until 1918, when it formed the bulk of the newly created Czechoslovakia. Today you can see examples of Bohemian architecture throughout the Czech Republic, including magnificent churches, abbeys, castles, country houses, grand squares and facades.
Flourishing in West Africa between the 13th and 17th centuries, the Mali Empire spanned roughly 500,000 square miles (1,295,000sq km) and brought immense wealth, as well as Islamic religion and culture, to the region. Its most notable emperor was Mansa Musa I, who reigned from 1312 to 1337 and was reputedly among the richest people who ever lived, mostly thanks to the gold and salt deposits within his empire's borders.
After the death of the wealthy king the empire fell into decline, and crumbled following a series of civil wars in the late 17th century. It was then swallowed up by the Moroccan Empire. Today, a number of buildings dating back to the period still stand, including the Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu (pictured). The mosque’s open courtyard was built to resemble that of Mecca, while many of its clay and stone structures are now part of the University of Sankore.
Abyssinia, also known as the Ethiopian Empire, was a kingdom encompassing what is now Ethiopia plus, later in its history, Eritrea. It endured for seven centuries and was controlled by the Solomonic Dynasty, which claimed descent from the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Due in part to its strong Christian identity, it was one of just two African states – the other being Liberia – never to be fully taken over by European colonists.
In fact the nation existed until 1974, when Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed by the communist Derg, which went on to establish the People's Republic of Ethiopia. At that time it was one of only three countries in the world to still use the title 'emperor' for its head of state, alongside Japan and Iran. Though never wholly annexed, Abyssinia was occupied by fascist Italy during the 1930s, and only regained full sovereignty after the Second World War.
Among the largest and longest-lasting empires in history, the Ottoman Empire emerged in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) in the late 13th century. It went on to have superpower status during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566), when it expanded to cover vast swathes of southeast Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Ottoman forces famously reached the gates of Vienna in 1683 and threatened to overrun the whole of Europe, before being repulsed in an enormous battle that included the largest recorded cavalry charge in history.
The empire was eventually eclipsed by Europe's colonial powers and had started to unravel by the early 20th century. After siding with Germany in the First World War the nation lost the lion's share of its territory and was dissolved in 1923, after which it was reborn as the scaled-down Republic of Turkey. Today, there are dazzling examples of Ottoman architecture across the former kingdom, including the Topkapi Palace (pictured) in Istanbul, which contains a diverse trove of treasures and artefacts from the period.
The precursor to modern Italy, the history of the Kingdom of Sardinia can be a little confusing. The kingdom was created in 1324 by James II of Aragon – consisting at that time of the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean – and went on to become part of the Spanish Empire. In 1720 the island was ceded to the Duke of Savoy, who ruled part of the Holy Roman Empire in modern-day northern Italy and consequently united the two territories into one kingdom. By 1861 the kingdom had also annexed Lombardy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and gained control of the central Italian states.
That same year, the Kingdom of Sardinia changed its name to the Kingdom of Italy, and the capital was moved from Turin to Florence and eventually on to Rome, bringing into being the modern Italian state. Today, the sun-drenched island of Sardinia is a holiday hotspot, with white sandy beaches, pastel-coloured houses and historic towns galore, many of which are filled with architecture dating back to the former kingdom's glory days.
Located in modern-day Romania, Moldova and Ukraine, the Principality of Moldavia was founded in 1346 and remained an independent state until ruler Bogdan III the One-Eyed (who was wounded in battle – can you guess where?) submitted to Ottoman rule in 1514. Though unquestionably a vassal state (one often obliged to pay money and provide military assistance to its superior) Moldavia enjoyed a large degree of autonomy, and remained a distinct country for several more centuries.
The nation's end came in 1859 when it merged with Wallachia, forming the basis of modern Romania. Prominent examples of Moldavian architecture that you can still see today include the 15th-century Putna Monastery in Bucovina, Romania (pictured), Capriana Monastery in Capriana, Moldova, and Trei Ierarhi Monastery in Iasi, Romania.
Covering much of modern Thailand and a precursor to the modern nation, Ayutthaya was a prosperous empire and one of Asia's greatest powers at its height, lasting around 400 years between the 14th and 18th centuries. The nation rose on the back of a strong navy and merchant fleet, and by the 1600s it had become wealthier than many European countries. Its capital city (also called Ayutthaya), was a centre for international trade and rivalled Paris in size and splendour.
The kingdom eventually dissolved in the 18th century. Weakened by economic strife and political instability, Ayutthaya was besieged by the Burmese army (from modern-day Myanmar) in 1765 and fell in 1767, marking the end of a long era. Today, the best-preserved remnants of the once-prosperous nation can be found at the UNESCO World Heritage Site the Historic City of Ayutthaya (pictured).
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Mughal Empire expanded from central Asia to rule most of Pakistan and India, and oversaw the spread of Islam across the southern parts of the continent. The Mughals brought a number of lasting changes to India, including Persian language, art and culture, unusually high religious diversity and a centralised government. By the 1700s it was one of the world’s biggest economic powers.
After a golden age of cultural and economic prosperity, internal conflict and increasing decadence led the empire to gradually break up during the 18th century. Europe's colonial powers took advantage militarily and economically, and the British East India Company decimated the empire's industries and finally deposed the last emperor in 1858. Today, the empire is perhaps best known for leaving the world the Taj Mahal, the astonishingly beautiful white marble mausoleum built by grieving emperor Shah Jahan for his wife in the Indian city of Agra.
The Merina Kingdom was founded in 1540 by King Andriamanelo and covered almost the entire island of Madagascar at its apex. The Merina kings and queens are credited with developing agriculture on the island and initiating trade with Europe.
Like much of the African continent, the kingdom was invaded by France in 1883 and officially colonised in 1897, when it became known as the Malagasy Protectorate. The last monarch, Queen Ranavalona III, was exiled first to Reunion Island and then to French Algeria, where she died in 1917. There are several Merina buildings that modern visitors to Madagascar can look out for, including the 17th-century Rova of Antananarivo palace complex (pictured), as well as the 19th-century Ambohitsorohitra and Andafiavaratra palaces.
Check out these amazing archaeological sites discovered by amateurs
Located in modern-day Benin, the Kingdom of Dahomey was established around 1600 by the Fon people and grew into a major regional power. Its economy was built on slavery and trade, and the country flourished as an independent state for several centuries. The nation was particularly known for a regiment of all-female warriors – called the Dahomey Amazons by European observers, after the Amazons of Greek myth – and cultivated a fearsome reputation, holding annual ritual celebrations that involved mass human sacrifice.
Dahomey ultimately succumbed to European colonisation, falling in 1894 after King Behanzin's troops were defeated by French forces. Among the most prominent remains of the former kingdom are the Royal Palaces of Abomey, a palatial complex of 12 buildings spread across the southern city of Abomey, which are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO calls them "a unique reminder of this vanished kingdom".
Long before it was the 50th US state, the Kingdom of Hawaii was formed in 1795 when the islands of Hawaii, Oahu, Maui, Molokai and Lanai united under King Kamehameha the Great. The addition of Kauai and Niihau put the whole archipelago under one crown in 1810. A vulnerable nation with a strategically important location in the heart of the Pacific, the kingdom resisted attempts at colonisation by the British and French while trading mostly with the United States.
The US was concerned that Hawaii would be grabbed by a rival and wanted to prevent the monarchy rewriting the country's constitution to the detriment of American business interests. It backed a coup against Queen Lili'uokalani in 1893 and officially annexed the kingdom in 1898. While the Kingdom of Hawaii may have fallen more than a century ago, there's still a place where the former kingdom legally exists: at the Kalakaua crypt on the island of Oahu (pictured), a burial ground where many Hawaiian monarchs are buried.
It may only have lasted for a little over a decade, but the former kingdom of Gran Colombia played a huge role in South and Central American history. Inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, Venezuelan military leader Simon Bolívar launched a campaign in 1808 to liberate his country and his continent from Spanish rule, and went on to defeat the colonial power during the Venezuelan War of Independence.
In 1819, the newly independent union of Gran Colombia was declared, including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and parts of Peru. But despite Bolivar's grand ambitions the new nation was too large and unwieldy to survive, and near-instant internal divisions saw the supersized state quickly dissolved. Today, there’s little surviving evidence of the lost kingdom, although the Colombian, Venezuelan and Ecuadorian flags are based on the former banner of Gran Colombia.
If you thought a 12-year rule was short, spare a thought for the poor old Republic of Texas, which barely managed to squeeze out 10. The then-Mexican province, which extended across modern-day Texas as well as parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming, had a large population of US settlers and broke away from Mexico in 1836 following the bloody Texas Revolution.
Mexico refused to recognise the republic and was a constant threat. Fearing an invasion, a majority of Texians favoured annexation by the US, and, despite initial opposition from a US government reluctant to absorb a heavily indebted slave-owning territory, Texas became the 28th state in 1846. Mexico was unimpressed, and the Mexican-American War followed. Today, you can visit historic sites from the former republic like the San Jacinto Battleground (pictured), where settlers won a major victory over Mexican forces, and Washington-on-the-Brazos, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed.
Among the best-known and shortest-lived entrants on our list, the Confederacy was formed by seven slave-holding American states in February 1861 following the inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln, who had campaigned on an anti-slavery platform. The unrecognised breakaway country grew to include a total of 11 southern states.
The Confederacy attacked northern Union forces at Fort Sumter in April 1861, triggering the American Civil War. After four years of fighting, the South surrendered and the short-lived Confederacy was no more. The 13th Amendment passed that same year, outlawing slavery across the United States. Today, one of the best places to learn about this dark and troubling period of US history is at the American Civil War Museum, which has three locations in Virginia.
Today the Austro-Hungarian Empire is best known for siding with Germany during the First World War, but it was a major European player long before that. When the Austrian Empire was decimated by the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, it was forced to enter a mutually beneficial union with neighbouring Hungary that turned the two countries into a behemoth. The largest state in Europe at the time (excluding Russia) and ruled by the Hapsburgs, at its height the empire spanned the modern nations of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, plus parts of Italy, Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Serbia.
Along with its intimidating military, Austria-Hungary was a world leader in manufacturing. It could easily have survived into the present day but was on the losing side in the First World War, which led to its dissolution in 1918. Plenty of impressive architecture from the period still survives, ranging from the Art Nouveau-style buildings of Sarajevo to industrial landmarks like the beautiful Belgrade Train Station (pictured).
More than a millennium ago, the Tibetan Empire ruled the Tibetan Plateau in the Himalayas from its capital city Lhasa, still one of the highest cities in the world, before falling under Mongol and then Chinese influence. The ancient region achieved de facto independence again in 1912 following the fall of China's Qing Dynasty. Imperial Chinese troops were ejected and the 13th Dalai Lama declared independence the following year. Though officially a protectorate of China, Tibet enjoyed considerable autonomy.
This all came crashing down when the Chinese Communist Party defeated China's Nationalist government in the Chinese Civil War. In 1950, the Communist People's Liberation Army entered Tibet, asserted Beijing's authority over the region and abruptly ended its de facto independence. Today, Tibet is governed as an autonomous region of China. It has a growing tourism industry, with stunning temples, incredible mountain scenery and cliff-top monasteries.
Yugoslavia, literally meaning 'Land of the Southern Slavs', came into being in 1918 following the collapse of Austria-Hungary after the First World War. It was a kingdom until the end of the Second World War, when the country became a communist republic under dictator Josip Broz Tito (pictured). Initially part of the Eastern Bloc in the Cold War, Tito broke with Soviet premier Joseph Stalin in 1948 and pursued political neutrality. By 1990 Yugoslavia was one of the largest and most developed countries in Eastern Europe, encompassing the modern-day nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia and Slovenia.
However, after the death of Tito in 1980 simmering ethnic tensions came to the fore. Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in 1991, and the bitter and sometimes genocidal Yugoslav Wars that followed led to the breakup of the nation in 1992. The Yugoslav period gave rise to a unique style of Brutalist architecture, with famous buildings including the Karaburma housing tower in Belgrade, Serbia, the Central Post Office in Skopje (pictured), North Macedonia and the Petrova Gora monument in Croatia.
Another nation forged from the ashes of the First World War, Czechoslovakia was born in 1918 from former territories of Austria-Hungary that included the Kingdom of Bohemia. The Central European nation started out as a democratic republic but became a communist satellite state of the USSR in 1946. The nation remained communist until 1989 when the peaceful Velvet Revolution ended one-party rule.
This was followed by increasing nationalist sentiment among Czechs and Slovaks, which prompted the dissolution of the country in 1992 and its split the following year into two sovereign states, the Czech Republic (also known as Czechia) and Slovakia. There are plenty of places you can learn more about the history of this troubled republic, but the National Museum in Prague (pictured) is one of the best.
A key 20th-century superpower, the USSR was formed in 1922 following a brutal civil war in Russia that ended in victory for the communist Bolshevik Party. A one-party state made up of numerous Soviet republics, the vast nation was at odds with the capitalist West from its inception. This clash of ideologies culminated in the Cold War, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear conflict.
The country's rigid ethos eventually spelled its downfall and by the 1980s its economic and political systems were crumbling. The death knell came in 1989 with a series of revolutions in Eastern Europe and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the USSR was formally dissolved in 1991. There are plenty of fascinating USSR landmarks to check out across the region, including the House of Terror museum in Hungary, which has an informative exhibition on the crimes and horrors of the regime housed inside the former headquarters of the Soviet political police.
Following defeat in the Second World War, Germany was split into three Western zones and a single Soviet zone. The Western zones formed the Federal Republic of Germany (generally known as West Germany), while the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic (generally known as East Germany). The Soviet satellite state, which had a strict command economy, erected the notorious Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop its citizens defecting to the less repressive West.
By the late 1980s, the regime was at death's door politically and economically. The Peaceful Revolution of 1989 dealt the final blow and led to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Germany, with the Berlin Wall torn down piece by piece partly by ordinary citizens. Without a doubt the most famous landmark from the period is the East Side Gallery – the longest surviving section of the Wall which displays a range of poignant artworks along its 0.8-mile (1.3km) length.
Vietnam, then known as French Indochina, won independence from France in 1954 under the leadership of communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, after defeating the colonial power in a brutal eight-year war. The peace talks that followed independence split the country into two zones, North Vietnam and South Vietnam, with elections planned for 1956 that would reunite them. But when South Vietnam's anti-communist and US-aligned leader Ngo Dinh Diem declined to hold those elections, the North responded by starting the equally bloody 20-year Vietnam War.
Despite the involvement of American, Australian and Thai forces, the South was defeated by the Soviet- and China-backed North, and the two zones were forcibly united in 1976 to create the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Today, former war relics including tanks, aircraft and bomb shelters can be seen at the Khe Sanh District in central Vietnam, which stand as a harrowing reminder of the war's horrific cost.
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser always dreamed of establishing a powerful pan-Arab state based on socialist principles, and got the ball rolling in 1958 with the creation of the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union comprising Egypt and Syria.
The union lasted just three years. Egypt's dominance of the UAR and Nasser's socialist policies resulted in a backlash from the Syrian elite, and a coup took Syria out of the alliance in 1961. Egypt, however, retained the name for another 10 years. For those wishing to learn more about the former nation, Cairo's Military Museum (pictured) is a great place to start.
Desperate to remain in power as most of the African continent was decolonising, the white-minority government of South Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), which had been a British colony since 1923, declared independence unilaterally in 1965. Though no country ever recognised Rhodesia, the illegal nation was a de facto country for 14 years.
Resistance to the regime was fierce. The ensuing war was fought between three factions: the Rhodesian government led by Ian Smith, the Marxist-Leninist Zimbabwe African People's Union and Robert Mugabe's socialist Zimbabwe African National Union, which emerged victorious. Hostilities ceased in 1979, ending white-minority rule and bringing into being the Republic of Zimbabwe. Pictured here is Victoria Falls, which sits on Zimbabwe's border with Zambia and is probably the country's most prized natural wonder.
Now discover which are the world's safest and most dangerous countries