One last map by Leopold Kohr, also an addendum to his book ‘The Breakdown of Nations’ (1957). Kohr probably realised that dividing Europe into rectangular, US-style states would clash with the ‘tribal’ makeup of the Old Continent’s culturally diverse peoples. So he modified that idea to propose a European federation of ’little states’: still too small to cause harm, but more in line with Europe’s ethnic composition.
Some states are small enough to continue undivided: Eire, Portugal, all 5 Scandinavian countries, the 3 Baltic countries (which weren’t yet independent at that time), the Netherlands and Belgium (is Luxembourg too small for this map, or has it been absorbed by Belgium?), Austria, Hungary, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria and Switzerland. The bigger European states are divvied up along not unfamiliar lines:
- The UK is disestablished in favour of its constituent nations: England, Scotland, Wales, (Northern) Ireland.
- Spain disintegrates into Asturia, Castillia, Andalusia, Catalonia and Aragón.
- France falls apart into Aquitaine, Brittany, Normandy, Isle de France, Alsace-Lorraine, Burgundy, Languedoc, the Midi and Corsica.
- Italy is replaced by successor states Savoy, Lombardy, Tuscany, the Papal States (!), Naples, Sicily and Sardinia.
- Yugoslavia breaks up into Croatia, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia.
- Romania becomes Transylvania and Wallachia.
- Czechoslovakia is divided among Bohemia and Slovakia.
- Germany, the pivotal power in Central Europe (in a bad way, historically) disintegrates into Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, the Rhineland, Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, Prussia, Silesia and one more state the name of which I can’t quite make out – but which would have to be Mecklenburg.
- Poland becomes Posen, Galicia and Warsaw.

If the rest of Europe is breaking up, why would Belgium remain intact, since the Walloons and Flemish don’t get along so well. Furthermore, Eastern Prussia was German-frei even in 1957; it will remain a finger of Russia unless another ethnic redistribution of peoples occurs – and in that case, the map will be outdated even more.
Comment by Solomon2 — November 7, 2006 @ 7:31 am
Obviously he’s not heard of the Basques!
Comment by Rhys — November 7, 2006 @ 9:42 am
Nor Basques, neither Galicians!!!!!
What does this map means??????
This Leopold was a bit crazy
Comment by u_mass2001 — November 7, 2006 @ 11:10 am
Obviously he’s not heard of the Basques!
Nor of the Slovenians. Lombardy?! WTF? :))
Comment by ill-advised — November 8, 2006 @ 8:33 pm
I wish he had tried to extend this idea to the east. It would have been interesting to see the ethnic composition of the middle east as “small states.”
Comment by sum_of_the_parts — November 8, 2006 @ 11:21 pm
You can split up The Netherlands in 3: Holland (western core), Brabant (nearly Belgium) and Friesland (Fryslan)
Comment by Sazz — November 10, 2006 @ 11:15 am
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Pingback by Las penas del Agente Smith » La Europa de los Estados — November 15, 2006 @ 6:33 am
In central northern Germany you missed Slesvig (Danish spelling) and Brunswick.
Comment by Anton Sherwood — November 19, 2006 @ 10:16 pm
merda, teremos que face-la reconquista!
Comment by kesar — January 31, 2007 @ 8:30 pm
ROTFLMAO , where is Galician an Basque States ? xD WTF is ASTURIA ? XDDDDDDD
Comment by Arkhan — February 1, 2007 @ 12:31 am
Well i think it could be based in Medieval
Maps, but what? i don’t know what:
ethnically Galicia and Portugal are the same! Asturias and Leon could be icluded there but never with Portugal outside! like Catalonia, Valencia and Balears! Basque people aren’t aragonese!
about national sense, buf!my god! Spain is
literally a bourdel!
Comment by Cun — February 1, 2007 @ 1:07 am
Galiza is not Asturia, Galiza is not Castila, Galiza is Galiza
Comment by galiza — February 1, 2007 @ 8:20 am
Sometimes I wonder if it’s necessary to be rich or violent for a country have the nation status.
GALIZA CEIVE.
Comment by cocerelho — February 1, 2007 @ 3:47 pm
The nation map that the author setted for what you usually know like Spain is absolutely false. The only real nations on that territories are actually Galiza, Catalunya, Euskadi and Spain/Castilla. It’s true that Andaluzia, Asturies and Aragón are now starting to talk about that, but historically only that four nationalist movements I said before find a clear support on their population.
Comment by maceirax — February 1, 2007 @ 7:58 pm
Home rule for Yorkshire!
Comment by acemsdavis — February 19, 2007 @ 1:24 am
If we start talking about history, which one? Castile would include the eastern part of what appears to be Asturia in this map and exclude its own eastern part (south of Aragon and most of Valencia). Where is the historic kingdom of Navarre? There is no thing such as the Basque country, by the way. Historically what today is called Euskalherria would be shared between Navarre (not shown) and Castile. Catalonia is not historical either, but you can call it Barcelonian County. And depending on which history are you talking about, the southern limit between Andalucia and Castile could be further north or further south of the current border
Comment by Javi — February 26, 2007 @ 11:23 pm
The dangers of history and ethnicity: Kohr happily disintegrated Yugoslavia without mention of Albanian Kosava.
Comment by Robert — March 11, 2007 @ 6:44 am
England looks too big compared to the others!
You could split it down the regions of the north-east, the north- west, Yorkshire and the Humber,the midlands,East Anglia, the south west, the south east and London or you could join some up to make them bigger.
Comment by lanky — May 19, 2007 @ 3:28 pm
The Asturia State is actually historically accurate, because in its start arround the 8th Century, its territory was pretty much the shown on the map.
The Galicia/Asturias/Leon/Castilla division was made to give territories to the Princes.
Comment by Jack — June 16, 2007 @ 2:03 pm
England would, in this model, be the dominant state of Europe, at least west of Russia. Isle de France would be even in its league in terms of population or industry, and it would be a definite second.
Comment by Warmongering Lunatic — June 20, 2007 @ 4:20 am
Shouldn’t Cornwall get to be its own little state?
Comment by jm — July 10, 2007 @ 9:19 pm
What about the area in far north europe inhabited by the sames(samis) who are often refered to as the lapps?
There is also Karelia to the east of Finland. The Karelians are related to the Finns and currently live in an autonomous part of North West European Russia.
You could also have Livonia in North West Latvia. The Livs speak a language related to Finnish and Estonian.
You could have Greater Slovenia which includes Slovenia and Southern Austria around Klagenfurt and Graz where Slovene is spoken.
You could have a Basque area around the North of Spain and the South West of France.
Switzerland could be divided up with the Italian and Rhaetian speaking areas going into an Italian region, the French speaking region going into a French area, and the German speaking area going into a German area.
The Hungarian speaking areas of the Burgenland, Vojvodina, Slovakia, Transylvania and the far West Ukraine could be united with the rest of Hungary (Nagy Magyarorszag).
Comment by paul — July 16, 2007 @ 8:53 am
No matter how finely you divide the map, there will be someone demanding a finer division!
Comment by Anton Sherwood — September 12, 2007 @ 9:35 pm
If I might say, this guy had never visited northeastern Italy or Slovenia.
We strongly hate both Italy and Lombardy, we have our identity (Friul and Slovenija) and we unified only by the loving memory of the best State ever appeared in Europe: THE HABSBURG EMPIRE.
So yes, no Lombardy thanks, we belong to Wien :)
Comment by Reegard — September 19, 2007 @ 11:35 am
It’s always interesting to see different possible divisions of various continents. If Europe were for some reason to suddenly divide into smaller sub-countries, then this would be an accurate depiction of it.
Comment by trademark registration — December 21, 2007 @ 4:17 am
Clearly Leopold Kohr shows little knowledge of European people, nationalisms and History…
And in Iberia only four regions would be bound to be sovereign States:
Portugal+Galicia
Catalunya+Valencia+Baleares(+Aragón)
Euskadi+Navarra
and the rest to Castilla
Comment by ampproa — January 22, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
This is the first time I’ve seen a map taht draws Slovakia big. A nice view:)
Comment by Bertram — March 5, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
A good way to divide Iberia in 6 different regions of roughly 10 million people.
Portugal
Galicia – Asturias – Cantabria – Basque country – La rioja – Navarre: Main languages – Castilian – Galician – Asturian – Basque.
Aragon – Catalonia – Valencia: Main languages: Castillian – Aragonese – Catalan
Castilla y leon – Extremadura: Main languages: Castilian – Galician.
Madrid – Castilla la Mancha – Murcia: Main language: Castilian.
Andalusia: Main languages: Castilian – Andalusian.
Though this make-up is far from perfect, and needs serious study in order to be tweaked much better.
Comment by mlw — June 29, 2008 @ 10:17 pm
The author used capitol city names as state names only for Polish states: Posen (that is in German) and Warsaw.
Comment by ethidium — September 8, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
thanks
Comment by hero — October 15, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
thanks.
Comment by hero — October 15, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
Agreed that England would be far too powerful in this scenario, not significantly less than if the whole of the UK was left intact. On current populations, England would have over 50 million people and I can’t see that any of the other entities getting anywhere close to that!
Comment by JohnLeLyonnais — January 13, 2009 @ 9:53 pm
thanks alot
Comment by Tony — May 4, 2009 @ 2:23 am
thanks for this map
good
luck
Comment by Solomon — May 11, 2009 @ 7:06 am
merci
Comment by aspicco . — May 17, 2009 @ 4:48 am
teşekkür ederim
Comment by yory — June 12, 2009 @ 8:08 pm
The Languedoc looks like it includes the ancient territory of Roussillon, and I can see that being split off from it too.
As for Ireland, Northern Ireland (six counties of Ireland) isn’t a constituent nation. The division of the island’s map since 1922 has been the source of much trouble, and Kohr’s map might be regarded as somewhat simplistic in its approach to this historical dilemma.
Comment by Mar Hampla — June 19, 2009 @ 9:10 am
Vielen Dank
Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 3:46 am
Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 6:28 am