The world in 1945

Why this year has a page

The historical-basemaps atlas drew a world sheet for this year.

The year of United Nations (dated events index, Wikidata).

Names on the map

As the map labels them, largest first by the area of the outline drawn. Areas are of the drawn outline, rounded, and approximate. The record column says which record draws the outline; a Wikidata item is given where the record links one.

What changed since 1938

Names counted are those the records date to the year or the day (CShapes, OpenHistoricalMap, Cliopatria). Outlines filled from the nearest historical-basemaps sheet are counted only when both years are years that sheet was drawn for — otherwise the change would be the switch between two sheets, not a change in the world. Names are compared as written, so a polity a record names differently in the two years (Carthaginian Empire, then Carthage) is in both lists.

← Earlier: 1938Later: 1946 →

Events dated to 1945

Every record of IntMap’s one index of dated events whose date falls in this year: what the border record (CShapes 2.0) states about its own outlines, IntMap’s war record, and the world events Wikidata dates — each with its source and the precision of its date.

1. 1945

   Operation Nordwind — the last German offensive in the west, into Alsace on New Year’s Day

   IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-01-01 – 1945-01-25

   On this day →
2. 1945

   Luzon and Manila — a month of street fighting kills 100,000 civilians

   IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-01-09 – 1945-03-03

   On this day →
3. 1945

   Luzon — the largest campaign of the Pacific war, and it is still being fought on the day Japan surrenders

   IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-01-09 – 1945-08-15

   On this day →
4. 1945

   The Vistula–Oder offensive — 500 km in eighteen days, the fastest advance of the war in Europe

   IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-01-12 – 1945-02-02

   On this day →
5. 1945

   East Prussia — three months to reduce the province, and Königsberg holds until 9 April

   IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-01-13 – 1945-04-25

   On this day →
6. 1945

   The death marches — the camps in the east are evacuated on foot in winter, and 100,000 to 250,000 prisoners die

   IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-01-18 – 1945-05-08

   On this day →
7. 1945

   The Colmar pocket is cleared and France is whole again for the first time since 1940

   IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-01-20 – 1945-02-09

   On this day →
8. 1945

   New borders for Soviet Union, Nazi Germany

   the border record (CShapes 2.0) · 1945-01-28

   On this day →
9. 1945

   The Manila massacre — about 100,000 civilians are killed during the month of street fighting

   IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-02-03 – 1945-03-03

   On this day →
10. 1945

    Yalta — occupation zones, the Soviet entry against Japan, and elections in Poland

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-02-04 – 1945-02-11

    On this day →
11. 1945

    The bombing of Dresden

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-02-13 – 1945-02-15

    On this day →
12. 1945

    Battle of Iwo Jima

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-02-19 – 1945-03-26

    On this day →
13. 1945

    Meiktila and Mandalay — the Japanese army in Burma is broken in three weeks

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-02-28 – 1945-03-20

    On this day →
14. 1945

    Operation Spring Awakening — the last German offensive of the war, for the Hungarian oil, and it fails in ten days

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-03-06 – 1945-03-16

    On this day →
15. 1945

    The Ludendorff bridge at Remagen is found standing, and the Rhine is crossed a fortnight early

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-03-07

    On this day →
16. 1945

    Operation Meetinghouse — 279 B-29s burn sixteen square miles of Tokyo in one night; about 100,000 die

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-03-09 – 1945-03-10

    On this day →
17. 1945

    Operation Varsity — the largest airborne operation ever flown to one place on one day, across the Rhine

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-03-24

    On this day →
18. 1945

    The Bratislava-Brno offensive — Slovakia and Moravia in six weeks

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-03-25 – 1945-05-05

    On this day →
19. 1945

    Battle of Okinawa

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-04-01 – 1945-06-22

    On this day →
20. 1945

    The Ruhr pocket — 317,000 men, the largest encirclement the Western Allies ever achieved

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-04-01 – 1945-04-18

    On this day →
21. 1945

    The Vienna offensive

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-04-02 – 1945-04-13

    On this day →
22. 1945

    The spring offensive in Italy — the Argenta gap is forced, the Po is crossed, and the German front dissolves in three weeks

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-04-06 – 1945-05-02

    On this day →
23. 1945

    The West Hunan offensive — the last Japanese offensive of the war is stopped short of the Zhijiang airfield

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-04-09 – 1945-06-07

    On this day →
24. 1945

    Battle of Berlin

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-04-16 – 1945-05-02

    On this day →
25. 1945

    The Seelow Heights — the last defensive line before Berlin is broken in four days

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-04-16 – 1945-04-19

    On this day →
26. 1945

    Elbe Day — American and Soviet patrols meet at Torgau and Germany is cut in two

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-04-25

    On this day →
27. 1945

    Fifty nations meet at San Francisco while the fighting in Europe is in its last fortnight

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-04-25 – 1945-06-26

    On this day →
28. 1945

    The insurrection of 25 April — Milan, Turin and Genoa are taken by the partisans before the armies arrive

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-04-25

    On this day →
29. 1945

    The surrender at Caserta — the German army in Italy lays down its arms six days before the rest

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-05-02

    On this day →
30. 1945

    Rangoon is retaken the day before the monsoon breaks

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-05-02

    On this day →
31. 1945

    The Prague uprising — the last fighting in Europe, two days after the German surrender was signed

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-05-05 – 1945-05-08

    On this day →
32. 1945

    The Prague offensive — the last operation in Europe, and 860,000 men surrender at the end of it

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-05-06 – 1945-05-11

    On this day →
33. 1945

    The unconditional surrender is signed at Reims at 02:41, to take effect on the eighth

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-05-07

    On this day →
34. 1945

    The map begins drawing Germany (Western Allies), Germany (USSR); the map stops drawing Nazi Germany; new borders for Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia

    the border record (CShapes 2.0) · 1945-05-08

    On this day →
35. 1945

    German surrender in Europe

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-05-08

    On this day →
36. 1945

    Zagreb is taken and the Independent State of Croatia ceases to exist

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-05-08

    On this day →
37. 1945

    The Charter of the United Nations is signed by fifty governments

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-06-26

    On this day →
38. 1945

    Balikpapan — the last major amphibious operation of the war, for oil nobody would need

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-07-01 – 1945-07-21

    On this day →
39. 1945

    Trinity

    1945 first detonation of a nuclear weapon

    1945-07-16 · Wikidata Q207342

40. 1945

    Potsdam — the last conference of the war, and the ultimatum to Japan

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-07-17 – 1945-08-02

    On this day →
41. 1945

    Atomic bombing of Hiroshima

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-08-06

    On this day →
42. 1945

    The Soviet Union declares war on Japan; the invasion of Manchuria begins an hour after midnight

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-08-08

    On this day →
43. 1945

    Atomic bombing of Nagasaki

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-08-09

    On this day →
44. 1945

    Soviet invasion of Manchuria

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-08-09 – 1945-09-02

    On this day →
45. 1945

    The map begins drawing Korea (USSR), Korea (USA); the map stops drawing Korea (Japan), Taiwan (Japan), Karafuto (Japan); new borders for Soviet Union, Republic of China, Empire of Japan

    the border record (CShapes 2.0) · 1945-08-15

    On this day →
46. 1945

    Korea is freed after 35 years and divided at the 38th parallel within the month

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-08-15

    On this day →
47. 1945

    The Emperor’s broadcast: most of his subjects hear his voice for the first time, to be told the war is over

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-08-15

    On this day →
48. 1945

    Mukden, Harbin and Changchun are taken; the Kwantung Army has ceased to exist in eleven days

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-08-20

    On this day →
49. 1945

    Surrender of Japan

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-09-02

    On this day →
50. 1945

    The indictment is filed at Nuremberg: for the first time, a court is to try the making of a war

    IntMap’s war record — World War II · 1945-10-18

    On this day →
51. 1945

    United Nations

    global international and intergovernmental organization

    founded 1945-10-24 · Wikidata Q1065

Sources and method

Borders and names: CShapes 2.0 (Schvitz et al. 2022, icr.ethz.ch/data/cshapes) · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 + Cliopatria v0.2.1 (Seshat Global History Databank, github.com/Seshat-Global-History-Databank/cliopatria) · CC BY 4.0 · adapted by IntMap: simplified, BC years made astronomical, and the ground OpenHistoricalMap (1689–1885, and from 1886 where CShapes is silent) and CShapes (1886–2019) state removed on their own dates.

Which years have a page is worked out when the site is built, from three rules applied to the records themselves: every year the historical-basemaps atlas drew a world sheet for; every year whose change from the year before (names the dated records begin or stop drawing) is in the top 5% of all such year-to-year changes since the dated records begin, leaving out the years where one record hands over to another; and every year of a geopolitical, war or revolution event in the dated events index, up to the last year the border records cover (2019).

On each year the map is read on 1 July, the instant the app’s own year links open on. Names are the source’s own, translated where the source or IntMap’s name table has a translation. A name is what a record draws there, not a verdict of history.

World map in 1945 — the map, with the years it stays the same Historical maps by region Countries On this day

All data sources →