This article gives a detailed listing of all the countries, including puppet states, that have existed in Europe since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the present day. Each country has information separated into columns: name of the distinct country, its lifespan, the country or countries that hold all or some of the territory it once did, and further information about it.This information is based on the main articles on these former countries.
Article scope
The scope of this article begins in 1815, after a round of negotiations about European borders and spheres of influence were agreed upon at the Congress of Vienna. The Congress of Vienna was a nine-month, pan-European meeting of statesmen who met to settle the many issues arising from the destabilising impact of the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.
The immediate background was Napoleonic France's defeat and surrender in May 1814, which brought an end to twenty-five years of nearly continuous war during which France had caused the annexation or geopolitical reorganisation of myriad European microstates as well as some larger ones. The Congress of Vienna was the first of a series of international meetings that came to be known as the Concert of Europe, which was an attempt to forge a peaceful balance of power in Europe, including restoring or reorganising many of the states which had previously been removed from Europe's political map.
Sovereign countries
This is a list of all the independent countries or puppet states that existed between 1815 and the present day that no longer exist. (Lifespan of each is based on that country's sovereignty. This means that those countries may have existed outside of those dates as well but not under full independence.)
Former countries EstablishmentDissolution Today part of Notes Flag Anhalt (Duchy) 18131867 Germany Became a member of the North German Confederation Federal State. Armenia (Democratic Republic) 19181920 Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey The Democratic Republic of Armenia emerged as an independent state in the wake of the Russian Revolution, which led to the collapse of the Russian Empire. However, it was invaded and incorporated in the Soviet Union in 1922. Artsakh 19912023 Azerbaijan Artsakh (also known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic) declared its independence from Azerbaijan in 1991 amidst the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. After the 1994 ceasefire that ended the war, the situation remained stable until the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, which saw an Azerbaijani victory. As a result, Artsakh's territory was substantially reduced and it became an enclave within Azerbaijan. Following the 2023 Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, Artsakh agreed to disarm itself, with the country's president agreeing to dissolve all government institutions by 1 January 2024. Austrian Empire 18041867 Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia This entity founded on the domains of the Habsburg monarchy can be regarded in constitutional law as a unitary monarchy on a differentiated federalistic basis, whereby the special position of Hungary within the framework of this federal entity was a separate realm ruled in a personal union that was not annexed or incorporated into the Empire. Austro-Hungarian Empire