File talk:Map of participants in World War II.png

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Quiero decir que Argentina no participó de la Segunda Guerra Mundial Yo soy argentino y me gustaría que cambien el mapa. gracias

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I want to say that Argentina never entered in the Second World War. I'm from argentina and i would like that you can change the map. thanks. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 80.136.90.234 (talk • contribs)

Argentina did declare war on Japan late in 1945, I believe --Astrokey44 10:34, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

De hecho Argentina fue neutral durante casi toda la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Después del ingreso de los EE UU en la contienda, Washington presionó al gobierno de Buenos Aires para unirse a los Aliados. Finalmente, Argentina declaró la guerra al Eje el 27 de marzo de 1945, como condición para ingresar a las Naciones Unidas. Por supuesto, en ese momento esto fue una mera formlidad.

Indeed Argentina was neutral for most of World War II. After the US entry into the war, Washington lobbied the government of Buenos Aires to join the Allies. Finally, Argentina declared war against the Axis on March 27, 1945, as a condition for join the United Nations. Of course, at that time it was a mere formality.--Gustavo Rubén (talk) 21:04, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

USSR green or orange?

These DOTS using BLUE, Light, or Dark Green are very hard to see correctly. Why not choose colors that are more readily identifiable? Like BLACK, YELLOW, RED??? It is ridiculous to try and see what color the DOTS are. I have switched from small map to large map over and over and after quite some time of study, I cannot clearly see the colors clearly.

Thanks

1939-1941 USSR was be a AXIS! They attack Poland!

Surely the former USSR should have a light green dot? sprocketonline

The USSR while it cooperated with the Axis, never was part of it. The pact it signed with Germany simply allowed the two nations to divide up Europe, and promised that neither country would attack the other. However, it did not make them allies.12.220.94.199 17:42, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, all this concept of the single drawing depicting who was where during long years of war is IMHO wrong. It should rather be either whole sequence of maps or something like this. Single picture is particularly misleading regarding to the large participants, like the US and the Soviet Union - both opposing Hitler only after beeing attacked, c.a. 2 years since the beginning of WW2. And the USSR before June 1941 was an active ally to Germany (aggressor to the Allies, both militarily (Invasion_of_Poland_(1939)#Phase_2:_Soviet_invasion_17.09.1939, Occupation_of_Baltic_Republics), and economically (German-Soviet_Commercial_Agreement).--EAJoe 15:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

1. Yes, USSR attacked in Poland in 1939, but they never were a Axes Member and there was no offical state of war between Poland and USSR.
2. The Joint German-Soviet aggression against Poland was a short part in the beginning of the WW2, this map however should show a general overview over the whole WW2 period. Too ignore that the USSR and the Sovjet front (even after US intervention!!!) always bound of at least 70% of all German faorces, to ignore that the USSR has almost half of all 56 mio war victims... and therefore to demand to mark the USSR as Axes member... this is an unbelievable and unsurpassable arrogance and stupidity. --Roxanna (talk) 15:12, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Soviet Union up to 1941 was not an ally, was not neutral, cooperated with Germany in both industrial support and military invasion of Central and Eastern Europe (not least of all in the invasion of Poland that launched the war), and tried to join the Axis. By omitting the dot, this represents a slanted view of the USSR vs other states. “No offical state of war” doesn’t matter: the Soviets invaded, occupied, and annexed all kinds of territories without an official state of war, and a couple of hundred conflicts since 1945 that were uncontroversially wars had no offical “state” at all. “Was a short part”?: this map treats the attack on Pearl Harbour as a central event, and many would say that the invasion of the Soviet Union was more important. “To ignore that the USSR . . . is an unbelievable and unsurpassable arrogance and stupidity”: nobody’s ignoring that. To the contrary, we’re arguing that this map should stop ignoring that June 1941 was a major turning point that put the USSR on the Allied side. This is a factual map, not an appeal to emotions.

It would be much clearer if states that changed sides had mixed-colour stripes, maybe thin blue over thick green, or a larger dot. Certainly including the USSR. —Michael Z. 2021-02-01 17:38 z 17:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• I propose coloring the Soviet Union in red. It's arbitrary to divide allies into two shades of green (before Pearl Harbor and after). USSR didn't become an ally until mid-1941, and in 1939 it even invaded Poland together with Germany. To color it in the same way as Poland or UK is confusing and potentially controversial. Given its status as the "weird Ally", a de facto third power, I think a separate coloring for it would be best. If red is too "different", possibly a third shade of green? - --GizzyCatBella (talk) 04:52, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

China

It did not formally declare war on Japan and only did so after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, when U.S. aid is assured. Shouldn't it be light green?Herunar 11:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

How come when Japan had been fighting since 1937? --PaxEquilibrium 21:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

And if you include Manchuria, it was fighting since 1931. --Whoop whoop pull up (talk) 19:43, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

French africa

French Equatorial Africa and French Cameroon should not have an orange dot since they were always free french. There should also be orange dots on Togo and Benin which were Vichy from what Ive read --Astrokey44 11:19, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I think Gabon should have an orange dot (shown here as part of French eq. africa) Maybe that was why the dot was on FEA, but it shouldnt have been on the whole colony, only on Gabon (Gabon was vichy from mid to end of 1940, I believe) --Astrokey44 06:48, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Scandinavia

The two scandinavian nations of Denmark and Norway wasn't allies to anybody as they were neutral until the Nazi Germany occupation in 1940. --Kasper Holl 13:30, 15 June 2006 (CEST)

I wish to verify the above comments. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 17:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Norway can plausibly be characterized as a part of the Allies but not Denmark, which never declared war on Germany and surrendered the day they were invaded to become a German puppet state. Classifying Iceland as part of the Allies is also strange to me; the country was neutral until it was invaded and occupied by Britain, becoming a British puppet state. Even then, it never declared war on Germany. Haukur 16:19, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Iceland was in a personal union with Denmark with Denmark being resposible for its foreign relations and defence. But in no case can it considered an allied country, but an neutral country under occupation. 82.181.150.151 22:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Turkey

Turkey never joined the war on either side, not even after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. D. F. Schmidt 03:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Turkey declared war in 1945 to secure membership in the United Nations. Still rather misleading incluing such countries here, same goes for Chile and others. In general the map gives the wrong idea about actual combatants in the war and overstates the Allied side (as pointed out in surrounding comments). A redesign is no doubt in order. Haukur 00:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to second everything that Haukur just said.Aussie Jim 05:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Finland

Finland is marked with "Light green dots represent countries that later in the war changed from the Axis to the Allies". Although one could argue about Finland being Germany's ally or even an "Axis-country" (complicated question, see relevant articles), it certainly never was one of the Allies even when fighting the Germans. Official Finnish mantra talks about seperate war outside of the larger Axis-Allies conflict.82.181.150.151 23:00, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of Axis-conquered countries as Axis states

The inclusion of countries like Ethiopia/Abyssinia I think is incorrect. Unlike many governments, they never came to terms with the occupying powers, they had internationally-recognised governments in exile and provided significant assistance to the Allies. Furthermore, Ethiopia was liberated in in 1940; see East African Campaign (World War II). For that matter Denmark and Thailand should probably be green with orange dots. Grant | Talk 04:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem with new color scheme

The green dots on blue are not very prominent unless the map is viewed at full size, while the blue dots on green are barely visible at all unless the map is viewed at greater than full size (i.e. with magnification!). AnonMoos (talk) 17:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

100%. I have good colour vision, and the green dots are almost completely indistinguishable, and the blue ones just barely. For the sake of basic readability and universal accessibility, the colours really need to be changed. —Michael Z. 2021-02-01 17:26 z 17:26, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Tibet

Please prove that Tibet was a single country then.--DS-fax 13:32, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The borders of Tibet are these of 1965. Around 1940 the Lhasa-administrated area was without the eastern and northeastern regions. It does not help to compare with File:Tibet 1940.png because there are also the wrong borders of 1965. Better you compare with File:WWI.png. --Roxanna (talk) 12:16, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Much changed between 1914 and 1940, most significantly due to the warlord period. Lhasa controlled what was essentially the TAR during this period. Parsecboy (talk) 22:06, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

No, it has not changed, at least not that much. The simple truth is: File:Tibet 1940.png is wrong, Tibet had these borders not before 1965. If you do not know this, then you should not add. You can better compare with File:ROC - 西藏地方.png, File:Tibet ming.png or File:Tibet-n-China.jpg... It is not a surprise, that for File:Tibet 1940.png is no source citation added. --Roxanna (talk) 16:58, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Please pay attention: much changed between 1914 and 1940. In 1932, an agreement was signed between Lhasa and Liu Wenhui that ceded western Kham to Tibet. Parsecboy (talk) 00:34, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

I agreed that Czechoslovakia actually never declared war to Nazzi Germany, but the blue colour is very unlucky. Czechoslovakia was forced to refer Sudetenland acording to Acuerdos de Múnich to Germany. In 1939 the state split up when Slovak Republic declared independence and join Nazzi Germany. But the rest of the state was actually occupied and proclaimed a protectorate by Hittler. I do not agree that the rest of Czechoslovakia was Axis power. According to the colour it looks like that. Antthonius (talk) 17:01, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Poland, Free City of Danzig and General Government

Blue dot on Poland is inaccurate, actually Poland never joined Germany and there was never establisched Polish puppet state, thrue whole war Poland was on Allies side. General Government was German state establisched on Polish soil. Quote from article of General Government on wikipedia: "The basis for the formation of General Government was a German-Soviet claim of the total collapse of the Polish state, announced by Adolf Hitler on October 8, 1939 through the so-called Annexation Decree on the Administration of the Occupied Polish Territories. This rationale was utilized by the German Supreme Court to reassign the identity of all Polish nationals as stateless subjects, with exception of the ethnic Germans of interwar Poland, named the only rightful citizens of the Third Reich in disregard of international law.[2]" Blue dot on Baltic is allso mistake, because Free City of Danzig never was part of Axis it was incorporated into Germany the day war started (01.09.1939). This two blue dots should be deleted.

general gov in poland = axis puppet state in poland

danzig = axis puppet state until the collapse of poland

Hell - lllio (talk) 12:42, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Lebanon.

What is this "Axis country" dot in sea near Lebanon? --Sidoroff-B (talk) 13:52, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

it is the dot for lebanon,they put it in the ocean cuz it didnt had enough space to put it on lebanon. — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 189.35.35.204 (talk) 11:54, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Indian states

What appear to be two princely states of India are strangely marked. I can't find any evidence that Sikkim or Manipur had any war policy separate from the British Raj. I'm not an expert, so maybe I'm missing something, but I do not believe those states were separate from India in the way that, for example, Bhutan was. Even more strange is the color for each state. Sikkim is marked neutral, which is strange considering that its own Crown Prince was killed in the war. And Manipur is colored as an Axis power. It was a major battleground during the war, but this was because of Japan attacking British positions in Manipir. Maybe I am completely mis-reading the map or misunderstanding the history, because as errors these seem particularly weird. Fishal (talk) 19:31, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Errors. i see

-Portuguese Timor should have a Blue Dot

-thailand should be Light Green with a Blue Dot

-Slovakia and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia should have Light Green Dots

-Belarus and Ukraine should have a Border with russia,and be labbeled dark green with a blue dot (because it was a german puppet for some time)

-Netherlands,Belgium,Luxembourg,Monaco and Suriname should have a Blue Dot on it,because Netherlands was an German Puppet state after the Invasion of Netherlands,(and cuz italy invaded monaco :V),also,when germany got Denmark,they had for like,20 minutes,the Faroe IS,in addition,luxembourg and malmedy-eugen we're annexed by germany

-Montenegro should be separated from serbia,and with a Blue Dot

-there should be another label type for Portugal, grey with Light Green Lines (for portugal and Portuguese colonies,excluding the Portuguese Timor,because it was a coloniy occupied by japan).

-the parts italy occupied from Egypt and France should be separated from their countries,(italy-occupied parts of egypt should be dark green with a blue dot,and the same for the italy-occupied France)

-Gabon should be separated,dark green with a Blue Dot

-Yemen was NOT an Allied Country in 1945

-Mongolia and Tannu tuva should also have light green dots

-San Marino should be Light green with a Blue Dot

-iran should be divided in 2,with a Light Green Dot in both parts

-italy should be divided in 2 (both blue with a light green dot), and the OZAK, the same.

-the grey Dots in iraq and saudi arabia borders should be Dark Green

-the channel islands should have Blue Dots

189.35.35.204 15:32, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

France should be striped

I propose a changed version with diagonal striping with 'original green' (#63B74E) and 'Axis blue' (#2AACF6) in alternating stripes for France and its colonies. Designating France and the colonies as an Ally of World War II is a historical fiction.

• France was an ally from outbreak of war until June 1940, thereafter a occupied country and puppet state of Nazi Germany.
• I considered alternating 'original green' and 'neutral gray' (#C6BDC7), but in fact France actively helped the German war effort, whether unwillingly (STO, compulsory work service in Germany) or willingly (Jewish deportations, support for Petain); the fact is, they helped the Axis war effort, sometimes with no outside prodding.

Either we need a new color to represent the before, vs. after-June 1940 situation, or some kind of combined indicator. A new color would just be an unnecessary complication, imho, and could lead to even more colors for different dates of conquest and so on; not a good solution. Striping alternating colors covers three bases at once:

• time: the different dates involved; 'original green' for the first part of the war, blue for the occupation period without getting bogged down on different dates for different locations;
• geography: the fact that in metropolitan France soil and the colonies, the official stance was pro-Axis, whereas the Resistance was pro-Allies.
• government-in-exile: it acknowledges that w:Free France, while based in London and northern Africa, had a claim on metropolitan France and the colonies, although it had no military presence there at first (until FFA in 1943 and FFI in 1944).

But listing all of metropolitan France and the African colonies and others as Allies throughout the war is absurd. France only narrowly avoided being part of the AMGOT occupied territories post-war, through the strenuous lobbying of de Gaulle, which would have placed them in the same category as Germany and Japan, as far as that goes.

French colonial empire

As to which countries are affected, they are France, plus roughly the intersection of the dark green countries on the current version of the map, with the shaded countries shown at the colonial empire map at File:EmpireFrench.png. This does not generate an exact list, because the latter goes back to the early 19th century, but it's a start. (Wrt Africa, it's roughly: File:French west africa countries.PNG + File:French equatorial africa.PNG + File:French north africa.png.) The striping will be clear in the full-size version, and likely fuzz in thumb-sized version to generate an apparent new color, and that's just fine imho, as long as the "blended color" doesn't look like some existing color used for something else. Mathglot (talk) 22:09, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

For clarity: do you propose to use this striping both for German occupied France and for Vichy France in the same way? Because if you count German occupied France as an axis nation, then so is German occupied Netherlands or German occupied Norway, right? Lennart97 (talk) 22:51, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@Lennart97: , that's a worthy question (both halves of it). Taking the easy part first: I'm not counting it as an Axis country, otherwise I'd advocate for blue. But it's clearly not an Ally, either; that was kind of the germ of the striping idea. The harder part of your question is what about NL or NO. Ultimately, I think it should come down to reliable sources; do they call NL or NO an "ally" or don't they? The part I noticed first, was France and the colonies, with France and a good part of French Africa painted green as if they were an "ally" in WW2, and that's just nuts. Addressing your question: perhaps occupied countries that were Allies before invasion and are knocked out of the conflict should have their own "occupied" color, or striping; I'm open to either, or other possibilities. At the very least, by no stretch of the imagination could the Nazi puppet French State (and colonies) be called an ally, whatever the result turns out to be for the others.

There's also a technical aspect to this discussion: while I'm aware that diagonal striping is definitely supported by css, I'm not familiar with how that might interact with irregular shapes like map polygons. If this discussion gets to the point where we need advice on that, I'll check with Pawel at the Graphics Lab. Secondly, beyond the technical aspects, there's the human perception aspect of how striping in thumbnails or on mobile devices appears to the eye; we might need some UX folks or maybe a trial version of the map in order to view it and see if it's even usable. If we get that far, we should open a subsection of this discussion just for the technical and perception aspects. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 01:21, 8 February 2021 (UTC) P.S. I'll look some more into what RS's say, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Mathglot (talk) 01:33, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Going by what RS say is of course always the correct approach, and I'd like to see what they say. What I'd expect based on my own limited knowlege would be the following. Vichy France, as a puppet state, is obviously different from the fully occupied nations and indeed should have some other status than just 'Ally'. But as for German occupied France, the only thing that sets it apart from the Benelux countries (I'm actually not entirely sure if Norway has a different status with its Quisling regime, so I'll limit the scope of the comparison) is that it was an Ally before it was occupied, as opposed to neutral. But from 1940 onwards, its status is identical to those other nations: full military occupation, an Allied government-in-exile and a combination of collaboration and resistance within the nation itself. Lennart97 (talk) 10:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

@Lennart97: That is, of course, a good point. I think part of my objection, is the didactic value of the map, or lack thereof. I'm thinking especially of students, or others who may not have much familiarity with WW2, much less the makeup of the Allies and Axis powers. I'm trying to put myself in their place looking at the world map belligerents for the first time, and imagining them thinking: "Oh, it's a spot of blue in central Europe on one side, and a sea of green on every other continent in the world on the other side fighting against them." The color scheme simply doesn't feel like an accurate representation to me; misleading, even. After all, South America is twelve times as big as Germany, so they alone would be enough to easily beat them, right? Maybe all the occupied countries, Vichyste or not, need some other color. Currently, the colors feel like a legalistic, "who was an ally on paper before the war" map, when the map is often labeled, "Belligerents" or similar, and to me, that means "Who is shooting at whom?" The easy way out, I suppose, is just change the title: "Lineup of powers before 1940". But that's lazy, and doesn't really "tell the story" that an infographic is supposed to tell. I think the current map is a failure, as it doesn't tell the story of the belligerents of World War II, and even misleads on the central reason for its existence, and something drastic needs to be done to fix that. I though of the striping idea, but there are probably other solutions. Mathglot (talk) 02:36, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't know about France, but the map in the whole is problematic because dark green, blue and light green are not contrasting enough and additionally because that might pose problems for colour-blind users (I haven't done a check for that, but MOS:ACCESS is rather clear we should take this into consideration). 107.190.33.254 14:25, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• I don't oppose coloring Vichy in a different color (although its distinct situation only existed 1940–1942 when it was fully occupied, similar to Norway or Greece with a collaborationist government installed—Greece and Norway are colored as Allied countries). When considering the color of the colonies, one should consider whether they were under Vichy or Free French control (see File:Vichy france map.png) Another issue I see is that arbitrarily Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is colored as Axis even though its condition was more comparable to Norway or Greece, again full Axis occupation with a government-in-exile that enjoyed the support of most of the population, Albania is Axis despite having been invaded and occupied by Italy, etc... Buidhe (talk) 03:29, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

The whole situation seems complex enough, that I don't know how to solve this. Maybe we need to think out of the box. Would be nice to hear from some professional historical map colorists (probably too much to hope for) or maybe better, some professional historians. Any thoughts on this, Rjensen? (In case it isn't clear, if you got here then you are on Wikipedia Commons, where images for Wikipedia are stored, and not on Wikipedia itself. This conversation is about the map image shown and described at the "File" tab, top left.) 06:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mathglot (talk • contribs) 06:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Apart from France how many occupied countries fought the allies, with national armies (and not volunteer units)?Slatersteven (talk) 09:54, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Iran

Why is Iran shown as neutral? It declared war on Germany in 1943, well before several other countries colored green on the map. John K (talk) 05:34, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

French Indochina

Most of the time French Indochina in World War II was Vichy-affiliated, in collaboration with the Japanese. After Japanese coup d'état, it was solely under Japanese occupation. This map should be corrected. 2604:3D08:4E7F:F7E0:0:0:0:97DF 02:10, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Incoherence in time

The map is pretty flawed. Syria is shown as allied, which only happened after the June-July 1941 invasion. Meanwhile, Iraq is shown as Axis, which ended after the May 1941 invasion. Moreover the Soviet Union never formally joined the Allies but rather joined together through the Anglo-Soviet Agreement in July 1941 after the June invasion. Also, Poland, which fell in 1939, still exists as a sovereign on the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darer101 (talk • contribs) 00:44, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

What countries have dark green dots?

Am I blind, or are there no countries with dark green dots? Could someone point them out? Maybe we could benefit from adding their names in the description. — W.andrea (talk) 03:10, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Iceland is Allied?

This has been brought up before, as well as on a Wikipedia talk page, but Iceland shouldn’t be Allied. Iceland was under British protection for awhile and in a union with Denmark before the war, etc, and was eventually invaded by Britain which established a puppet state, but never declared war on anybody. British Invasion shouldn’t automatically make the country allied with Britain. CanO27sprite (talk) 00:41, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Libya

Libya doesn't have a green dot because its territory is considered contigenous with Italy? — Preceding unsigned comment was added by 37.144.245.44 (talk) 16:11, 31 January 2023 (UTC)