by Ken JenningsApril 10, 2017
Today, the unrecognized Somaliland is governed from Hargeisa (pictured) with its own police force, currency, president, and parliament.
In this week’s Maphead, Ken Jennings explores a country that existed for just five days or for 50 years, depending on who you ask. If all goes well, the United States will celebrate its 241st birthday this summer—and that’s young by international standards. Plenty of countries on the map have been around for thousands of years. But what about the shortest-lived nations in world history? The State of Somaliland, in East Africa, is one of the weirdest of the brief candles. It only existed for five days in 1960. Or, depending on whom you ask, it’s still around and functioning pretty well as a nation today.
Britain and Italy take Africa by the horn.
When the European powers carved up Africa in the nineteenth century, modern-day Somalia was still a patchwork of local sultanates dotting the Horn of Africa. In the 1880s, the British cut deals with the sultans on the Gulf of Aden, while the Italians, comparatively late to colonialism, moved in on the Indian Ocean. But by 1960, the age of empire was pretty clearly over, and both Britain and Italy agreed to grant independence to their Somali territories.
This land is your Somaliland, this land is my Somaliland.

Busy streets of Hargeisa in Somaliland. Getty Today, the unrecognized Somaliland is governed from Hargeisa (pictured) with its own police force, currency, president, and parliament