Mapped: The World's Oldest Democracies

[NeoGreen]

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-worlds-oldest-democracies/

Mapped: The World’s Oldest Democracies

Which country today is the world’s oldest democracy?

It’s a loaded question ⁠— as you’ll see, there is plenty of nuance involved in the answer.

Depending on how you define things, there are many jurisdictions that can lay claim to this coveted title.

[rampartc]

1. no conservative considers the usa to be a democracy.

they become highly annoyed at the suggestion.

[KG]

6. oh, they love conservosplaining that it's a representaive republic or some variation

like they're clever or something.

[rampartc]

8. the goofy story about franklin telling a WOMAN that she had a "republic"

as if it mattered to someone that the founders could never imagine voting.

[TrogL]

2. Wait...Canada preceded England as a democracy?

Oh, the delicious irony.

[FBaggins]

3. As the OP hints... it's complicated

It all depends on how you define your terms. The date for Canada is easy, because that's the year of the British North American Acts (which became Canada's Constitution Act) and the formation of Canada as a (semi) independent country.

The UK could be dated anywhere along a spectrum from the late 17th century (when the king was no longer the absolute authority)... to that same 1867 (with the Reform Act that expanded the vote to about 1/3 of the population) to as late as the 1920s when all those over 21 could vote.

[pecosbob]

4. It's BS to shorten France's span as a democracy because they were occupied by a foreign invader

[Coventina]

5. Um....the Netherlands needs to be pushed back to 1648

[EX500rider]

7. ?

"The Netherlands has been a constitutional monarchy since 1815, and due to the efforts of Johan Rudolph Thorbecke, became a parliamentary democracy since 1848."

They had some earlier Republics that didn't last and were even ruled by Napoleon, as a puppet kingdom governed by his brother Louis Bonaparte.

This part is less to their credit:

"The Netherlands abolished slavery in 1863, as the last country in Europe to do so. Furthermore, slaves in Suriname would be fully free only in 1873, since the law stipulated that there was to be a mandatory 10-year transition."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands


There is only one country with continuous democracy for more than 200 years (The United States),