List of irredentist claims or disputes

This is a list of irredentist claims or disputes. Irredentism is any political or popular movement that seeks to claim or reclaim and occupy a land that the movement's members consider to be a "lost" (or "unredeemed") territory from their nation's past. Not all territorial disputes are irredentist, although they are often couched in irredentist rhetoric to justify and legitimise such claims both internationally and within the country.

For proposed mergers of sovereign states, see List of proposed state mergers.

Main article: Irredentism

Prominent irredentist disputes (by area)

Prominent irredentist disputes during the past century have included:

Europe

State	Claimed area	Notes
Armenia	Republic of Artsakh
Austria	South Tyrol	A desire to unify South Tyrol with Austria is held by nationalist groups in both Austria and South Tyrol, which became part of Italy following Austria's loss in World War One.[1][2][3]
Azerbaijan	Parts of:  Iran	Azeri-majority provinces of Iran: West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Zanjan are claimed by Azeri nationalists that seek to unite all Azeri-populated areas.
Chechnya	Parts of:  Dagestan	Internal dispute: Chechnya (currently part of the Russian Federation) has occasionally laid claims on a region called Akkia (roughly the Auhovskiy rayon, in Russian), part of neighbouring Dagestan (also in Russia).
Georgia	Abkhazia  South Ossetia	Abkhaz–Georgian conflict Georgian–Ossetian conflict
Ingushetia	Parts of:  North Ossetia – Alania	Internal dispute: Both territories are part of Russia.
Ireland	Northern Ireland	The claim was officially dropped in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement.
Portugal	Olivenza	Currently administered by Spain. Not actively pursued by Portugal since both countries joined the European Union in 1986.
Serbia	Republika Srpska	Currently, there is a movement calling for the unification of Republika Srpska with Serbia. The area is currently part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[4]
Spain	Gibraltar	Status of Gibraltar
Albania	Kosovo

Russian irredentism can be divided into three categories: broad, intermediate, and narrow.

• The broad sense includes all lands that historically made up the Russian Empire and/or the Soviet Union at their maximum extents. It may also extend to neighbouring countries or regions that are populated by peoples over which Russia ruled (e.g. Iranian Azerbaijan in Iran), or peoples which are closely related to them due to linguistic, ethnic or religious ties. Historically, Russia has pursued all of these avenues; examples include the Panslavism movement to put all of the Balkans (where there exists Slavic and Eastern Orthodox majorities) under Russian hegemony; the Third Rome philosophy, which focused on re-claiming the former Byzantine Empire regions (in particular the warm winter port of Constantinople, today Istanbul), and in addition establishing a hegemony over Greater Armenia and the Holy Land (Lebanon, Palestine etc.). Simultaneously, there were ambitions to continue expansion into Persia and even India (see The Great Game). The Russian Empire also planned to force Qing China to cede Xinjiang, Manchuria, Outer Mongolia, and Korea. While the Russo-Japanese War ended most of these prospects, the Soviet Union would eventually create a sphere of influence in this area in the form of the Mongolian People's Republic and the Tuvan People's Republic. Finally, in Russian America, Russia held claims extending from the Aleutian Islands to northern California, but these plans were cancelled after Alaska was sold to the United States in 1867.
• The intermediate sense includes some or all of the independent countries and/or territories that made up the historical Russian borders. These may include Moldova, Ukraine, eastern Poland, Belarus, the Baltic states, and Finland in Europe, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia in the Caucasus, and Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. Some narrower definitions include only the pro-Russian breakaway states of Abkhazia (Georgia), South Ossetia (Georgia), and Transnistria (Moldova), as well as Kars Oblast in Turkey and Batum Oblast partly in Turkey also (Ardahan Province) and Adjara in Georgia.
• The narrow sense of Russian irredentism focuses only on regions that are populated by ethnic Russians that are outside the Russian Federation, such as: Narva in Estonia; lands around Daugavpils and Riga in Latvia; Sloboda Ukraine, Novorossiya, and Crimea from Ukraine (the latter of which has de facto joined the Federation[5][6]); Gagra district in Georgia (also claimed by Abkhazia); and lands between the Russian border and the rivers of Ural and Irtysh in Kazakhstan, as well as parts of Semirechye.

Historical and fringe disputes

Many fringe and opposition groups in various countries maintain their own set of territorial claims, which are given below:

State	Claimed area	Notes
Albania	Kosovo Parts of:  Serbia  Montenegro  North Macedonia  Greece	Some claim the calls for a Greater Albania is irredentist.
Armenia	Parts of:  Georgia  Azerbaijan  Turkey  Iran
Belarus	Parts of:  Poland  Lithuania  Russia
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Parts of:  Montenegro  Serbia
Bulgaria	North Macedonia Parts of:  Romania  Serbia  Greece  Turkey  Albania
Croatia	Parts of:  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Serbia  Montenegro
Denmark	Scania Schleswig
England	Monmouthshire	The English Democrats Party are irredentist in regards to Monmouthshire (since 1974 part of Wales).[7]
Estonia	Parts of:  Russia
Finland	Karelia
Greece	Cyprus Parts of:  Turkey  Albania  Bulgaria  North Macedonia	The Megali Idea became a political objective of the Greek government in the early 20th century. It envisioned a "Greater Greece" covering areas of earlier Greek empires where significant Greek settlements still existed. The idea ended with the devastating defeat of the Greek army in Asia Minor in 1922 and the following population exchange between Greece and Turkey.[8][9]
Georgia	Parts of:  Turkey  Russia  Azerbaijan  Armenia	Georgian irredentists claim Tao-Klarjeti
Germany	Austria  Luxembourg  Liechtenstein Parts of:  Belgium  Poland  Lithuania  Russia  Denmark  France  Czech Republic  Hungary  Slovakia  Italy  Slovenia
Hungary	Parts of:  Slovakia  Romania  Serbia  Ukraine  Austria
Italy	Malta Parts of:  Albania  Croatia  France  Greece	Italian claims to Istria and Dalmatia after World War I.
North Macedonia	Parts of:  Greece  Bulgaria  Albania	Irredentists from North Macedonia have expressed land claims to the entire historical region of Macedonia
Norway	Greenland  Faroe Islands  Shetland  Orkney Parts of:  Sweden	Theoretical claim to the Orkney and Shetland Islands due to a 15th century unpaid dowry to the king of Scotland.[10]
Poland	Parts of:  Belarus  Ukraine  Lithuania  Czech Republic
Romania	Moldova Parts of:  Bulgaria  Ukraine
Serbia	Kosovo Parts of:  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Croatia  North Macedonia  Montenegro
Slovenia	Parts of:  Italy  Austria  Croatia
Turkey	Cyprus  Crimea Parts of:  Syria  Iraq  Greece  Bulgaria  Armenia  Azerbaijan  Georgia  Iran
Ukraine	Parts of:  Transnistria  Romania  Slovakia  Poland  Belarus  Russia

• In the 1955 referendum, Saarland, a previous French protectorate territory, voted to reunite with Germany.
• French claimed Alsace-Lorraine before World War I, after which the territory was returned to them.
• Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro claimed various European parts of the Ottoman Empire and Albania (both of which the four divided among themselves) before the First Balkan War, where they took these claims to the battlefield, and won.

Asia

State	Claimed area	Notes
Afghanistan	Parts of:  Pakistan
Cambodia	Parts of:  Vietnam
People's Republic of China	Republic of China Arunachal Pradesh ( India)
North Korea	South Korea
India	Azad Kashmir  Gilgit-Baltistan Part of - Islamic Republic of Pakistan And Aksai Chin Part of-  People's Republic of China
Japan	Kuril Islands ( Russia)
Pakistan	Jammu and Kashmir ( India)
Philippines	Parts of:  Sabah ( Malaysia)
Republic of China	People's Republic of China
Republic of China	Tuva  Mongolia
South Korea	North Korea

Middle East

State	Claimed area	Notes
Iraq	Kuwait
Iraq	Khuzestan ( Iran)
Iraqi Kurdistan	Iraq
Israel	Palestine
Lebanon	Parts of:  Israel
Palestine	Israel  Jordan
Syria	( Israel)
Syria	Hatay ( Turkey)

South and Central America

State	Claimed area	Notes
Argentina	Falkland Islands  South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands	Argentina claims land in the South Atlantic and Antartica, including the Falkland Islands
Bolivia	Parts of:  Chile
Chile	Parts of:  Argentina
Guanacaste	Puntarenas
Guatemala	Parts of:  Belize	Referred to the International Court of Justice since 2019.
Nicaragua	Parts of:  Costa Rica  Colombia
Suriname	Parts of:  French Guiana  Guyana
Venezuela	Parts of:  Guyana

North America

State	Claimed area	Notes
Quebec	Labrador	The Quebec government claims that the territory of Labrador belongs to the province of Quebec. Labrador is part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.[11]

Africa

State	Claimed area	Notes
Comoros	Mayotte
Madagascar	Parts of:  France
Mauritania	Western Sahara  Azawad Parts of:  Mali  Niger
Morocco	Western Sahara  Madeira  Canary Islands  Mauritania  Ceuta  Melilla Parts of:  Algeria  Mali
Somalia	Parts of:  Ethiopia  Kenya

See also

• Ethnic nationalism
• Ethnic cleansing
• Identity politics
• Lebensraum
• Revanchism
• Status quo ante bellum
• Manifest destiny
• Historical powers

References

1. Bell, Bethany (8 December 2012). "South Tyrol's identity crisis: Italian, German, Austrian...?". Bolzano, Italy: BBC News. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
2. "South Tyrol heading to unofficial independence referendum in autumn". nationalia.info. 3 July 2013. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
3. Marchetti, Silvia (31 May 2014). "The South Tyrol identity crisis: to live in Italy, but feel Austrian". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
4. Refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for. "Refworld | Bosnia: Defying court ban, Republika Srpska goes ahead with 'Statehood Day'". Refworld. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
5. Socor, Vladimir (25 March 2014). "Putin's Crimea Speech: A Manifesto of Greater-Russia Irredentism". Eurasia Daily Monitor. 11 (56). Archived from the original on 27 April 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
6. Saideman, Stephen (18 March 2014). "Why Crimea is likely the limit of Greater Russia". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
7. "Manifesto of the English Democrats: Putting England First" (PDF). bbc.co.uk. 2005. Retrieved 25 April 2016.
8. Finefrock, Michael M. (March 1980). "Ataturk, Lloyd George and the Megali Idea: Cause and Consequence of the Greek Plan to Seize Constantinople from the Allies, June-August 1922". The Journal of Modern History. The University of Chicago Press Books. 52 (S1). Retrieved 26 October 2019.
9. "The Greek Turkish Population Exchange" (PDF). Retrieved 26 October 2019.
10. "Norwegians revive historic dispute over Western Isles". The Guardian. 20 February 2002. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
11. "La question du Labrador" [The question Labrador]. Estrien Movement for French (in French). 2 May 2001. Archived from the original on 26 April 2005.