The atlas / Countries
Politics, put into practice.
From ancient empires to modern republics. Explore how states and regimes organize power, shape society, and engage with the world.
204 profiles
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- Current states & regions
Brazil
The largest country in Latin America, Brazil is a democratic presidential federal republic with a mixed economy, broad social policies, and strong regional, cultural, and political diversity that shapes its electoral disputes.
- 20th & 21st centuries
Brazil (Vargas Era)
Under Vargas, Brazil experienced a nationalist, developmentalist regime that promoted state-directed industrialization, labor legislation, and the centralization of power, laying the foundations of Brazilian labourism.
- 20th & 21st centuries
Brazil under Military Rule
Dictatorship installed in 1964, combining political repression, censorship, and security agencies with state-led developmentalism, major infrastructure projects, market reserves, and conservative moralism during the Cold War.
- 19th century
British Empire
At its Victorian height, the British Empire was the largest in history, uniting parliamentary monarchy, the industrial revolution, and global colonial rule, with strong commercial, naval, and cultural expansion across the world.
- Current states & regions
Bulgaria
A parliamentary republic with an Orthodox majority, Bulgaria belongs to the EU and NATO, with a low flat tax, chronic political instability, oligarchs and corruption, historic ties to Russia, a nuclear plant, a Roma minority and conservative laws on gender.
- Middle Ages
Byzantine Empire
Heir of the Roman Empire in the East, Byzantium lasted a thousand years fusing Orthodox Christianity, imperial autocracy, and Justinianic law, with the emperor as head of the Church and Constantinople as a Christian capital defending Europe.
- Current states & regions
California (United States)
The most populous US state, California is a global hub of technology and culture, with strongly progressive, environmentalist, and technocratic politics and a gigantic, innovative market economy.
- Early modern
Calvinist Geneva
The city of Geneva under Calvin (1541–1564) organized itself as an urban Reformed theocracy, with the Consistory disciplining public morality and the Ordonnances Ecclésiastiques regulating all religious and civil life and exporting Puritanism.
- Current states & regions
Canada
A federal parliamentary monarchy, Canada combines stable democracy, multiculturalism, a broad welfare state, and a market economy rich in natural resources, with a strong commitment to rights and diversity.
- 20th & 21st centuries
Cárdenas's Mexico
Government of the Cardenista peak, marking the institutionalized Mexican Revolution through oil nationalization, ejido land reform, worker-peasant incorporation, popular secularism, and strong presidential leadership.
- Current states & regions
Catalonia (Spain)
An autonomous region in northeastern Spain, Catalonia combines its own national identity and language, an industrial, cosmopolitan economy, progressive social politics, and a strong independence movement that culminated in the 2017 referendum.
- Current states & regions
Chile
A South American presidential republic, Chile combines stable democracy, an open market economy, and a strong social and progressive agenda, a legacy of redemocratization after Pinochet's military dictatorship.
- Current states & regions
China
A single-party socialist state, China unites the absolute political control of the Communist Party with a state-directed market economy, becoming a global industrial, technological, and geopolitical power.
- Current states & regions
Chongqing (China)
National flag illustration
China's largest directly administered municipality, Chongqing combines heavy industry, a car-making base and freight trains to Europe with Bo Xilai's "Chongqing model" (public housing, anti-crime campaign, "red songs"), ended in 2012.
- Current states & regions
Colombia
A South American presidential republic, Colombia combines democracy, a strong Catholic tradition, and a market economy, seeking to consolidate peace after decades of armed conflict under an unprecedented left-wing government.
- 19th century
Confederate States of America
Battle flag illustration
Formed by the secession of eleven Southern states to preserve slavery, the Confederate States combined radical state confederalism, a traditionalist and religious agrarian society, and free trade, before being defeated in the Civil War.
- Current states & regions
Costa Rica
A presidential republic in Central America, Costa Rica stands out for abolishing its armed forces, its consolidated democracy, its environmental commitment, and a tradition of political stability and peace in the region.
- Current states & regions
Croatia
A Catholic parliamentary republic, Croatia belongs to the EU, the euro, Schengen and NATO, with a dominant Adriatic tourism sector, long-lasting HDZ governments, a contested memory of the war of independence, a Serb minority and a Church influential on family issues.
- Middle Ages
Crown of Aragon
A dynastic union of Aragon, Catalonia, and other Mediterranean lands whose constituent realms kept their own laws and assemblies. The Crown expanded through trade and conquest; its institutions were gradually abolished after the War of the Spanish Succession.
- Current states & regions
Cuba
A single-party socialist state in the Caribbean, Cuba maintains a planned economy, strong state control, and universal public services, with power centralized since the revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959.
- Current states & regions
Cyprus
A presidential republic of the EU, divided since the Turkish invasion of 1974, with an occupied north recognized only by Turkey, an influential Orthodox Church, a services and finance economy, sovereign British bases, a strong communist party and a peace plan rejected in 2004.
- Current states & regions
Czechia
A parliamentary republic in Central Europe, Czechia combines a consolidated liberal democracy, a strong secular tradition, an industrialized market economy, and integration into the European Union after the end of the socialist bloc.
- Current states & regions
Dagestan (Russia)
A republic of the Russian Federation in the North Caucasus, Dagestan is multiethnic and Sunni Muslim-majority, with strong Sufi religiosity, local clans, dependence on subsidies from Moscow, repression of radical Islamism, and little real autonomy.
- Antiquity
Democratic Athens
Symbolic illustration
A city-state of Ancient Greece, Athens was the cradle of direct democracy, with citizens deciding the polis's course in assembly, although participation excluded women, foreigners, and slaves from political life.
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