Japanese colonial empire

The Japanese colonial empire was the overseas empire of the Empire of Japan, beginning in 1895 with Japans victory over Qing China in the First Sino-Japanese War and expanding through further victories over the Russian Empire in 1904-1905 and the German Empire in the First World War. Taiwan came under Japanese control in 1895, Korea in 1905, Micronesia in 1914, and southern Sakhalin in 1905, followed by concessions in China and the South Manchuria Railway; after invading Manchuria in 1931 Japan installed the puppet state of Manchukuo and went on to found the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which by 1942 extended across much of China, Indochina, Malaya, the Philippines, the East Indies, Burma and New Guinea. At its territorial peak in 1942 the empire controlled about 8,510,000 square kilometers and, by 1943, more than twenty percent of the worlds population. Japanese colonial expansion was marked by aggression toward other nations and numerous atrocities and war crimes, and the empires overseas holdings ended with Japans defeat by the Allies in 1945. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/