Editing Colonization (section)

=== Middle Ages ===
The decline and collapse of the Roman Empire saw (and was partly caused by) the large-scale movement of people in [[Eastern Europe]] and Asia. This is largely seen as beginning with nomadic horsemen from Asia (specifically the [[Huns]]) moving into the richer pasture land to the west, thus forcing the local people there to move further west and so on until eventually the [[Goths]] were forced to cross into the Roman Empire, resulting in continuous war with Rome which played a major role in the fall of the Roman Empire. During this period there were large-scale movements of people establishing new colonies all over western Europe.  The events of this time saw the development of many of the modern-day nations of Europe like the [[Franks]] in France and Germany and the [[Anglo-Saxons]] in England.

In West Asia, during the reign of the [[Sassanid Empire]], some Persians established colonies in [[Yemen]] and [[Oman]]. The [[Arabs]] also established colonies in [[Northern Africa]], [[Mesopotamia]], and the [[Levant]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20180512214613/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1803 Pact Of Uma]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/North-Africa/From-the-Arab-conquest-to-1830|title=North Africa - Arab Muslim Conquest, Islamization, Arabization, and Berber Rebellion &#124; Britannica|website=www.britannica.com|accessdate=May 29, 2023}}</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20091128145127/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t253/e17 Select Spread Of Islam, The]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/ArabicSyria.htm|title=Kingdoms of the Arabs - Syria|first=P. L.|last=Kessler|website=The History Files|accessdate=May 29, 2023}}</ref><ref>"At the Prophet's death, according to the Muslim historians, the religion that he had brought was still confined to parts of the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs, to whom he had brought it, were similarly restricted, with perhaps some extension in the borderlands of the Fertile Crescent.  The vast lands in southwest Asia, northern Africa, and elsewhere, which in later times came to constitute the lands of Islam, the realms of the caliphs and, in modern parlance, the Arab world, still spoke other languages, professed other religions, and obeyed other rulers. Within little more than a century after the Prophet's death, the whole area had been transformed, in what was surely one of the swiftest and most dramatic changes in the whole of human history.  By the late seventh century, the outside world attests the emergence of a new religion and a new power, the Muslim empire of the caliphs, extending eastward in Asia as far as and sometimes beyond the borders of India and China, westwards along the southern Mediterranean coast to the Atlantic, southwards towards the land of the black peoples in Africa, northwards into the lands of the white peoples of Europe. In this empire, Islam was the state religion, and the Arabic language was rapidly displacing others to become the principal medium public life." Lewis, Bernard. THE MIDDLE EAST: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years, Touchstone Simon and Schuster, New York, 1995. pp 54-55</ref>

The [[Vikings]] of [[Scandinavia]] also carried out a large-scale colonization. The Vikings are best known as raiders, setting out from their original homelands in [[Denmark]], southern [[Norway]], and southern [[Sweden]], to pillage the coastlines of northern Europe. In time, the Vikings began trading and established colonies. The Vikings first came across [[Iceland]] and established colonies there before moving onto [[Greenland]], where they built settlements that endured until the 15th century. The Vikings launched an unsuccessful attempt at colonizing an area they called [[Vinland]], which is probably at a site now known as [[L'Anse aux Meadows]], [[Newfoundland and Labrador]], on the eastern coastline of [[Canada]].