Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory
The Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory was a German leased territory in Imperial and Early Republican China from 1898 to 1914. Covering an area of 552 km2 (213 sq mi), it centered on Kiautschou Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula. The administrative center was at Tsingtau (Qingdao). It was operated by the East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy. The Russian Empire resented the German move as an infringement on Russian ambitions in the region.
Postcard of Deutschland and Gefion arriving at Kiautschou Bay in 1899
Main gate of a Chinese munitions depot, taken over by the Imperial German Navy, 1898
Pier with German naval personnel, apparent expansion in progress, 1898
Disembarkation of the landing force
The German colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Unified in 1871, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts at colonization by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Bismarck resisted pressure to construct a colonial empire until the Scramble for Africa in 1884. Claiming much of the remaining uncolonized areas of Africa, Germany built the third-largest colonial empire at the time, after the British and French. The German colonial empire encompassed parts of several African countries, including parts of present-day Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, as well as northeastern New Guinea, Samoa and numerous Micronesian islands.
An East African Askari soldier holding Germany's colonial flag
Groß-Friedrichsburg, a Brandenburg colony (1683–1717) in the territory of modern Ghana
The Thetis, one of the ships of the East Asia Squadron
Woermann-Linie factory in Cameroon. From the 1830s, German shipping participated in trade with Africa and established factories there. From the 1850s, trade and plantation agriculture were undertakend by German companies in the South Seas. Some of these economic enterprises eventually formed the basis for the regions' conversion into German colonies.