Home > Land reform
4.2 Middle East
Land reform is discussed in the article on Arab Socialism
4.3 Europe
- France: a major and lasting land reform took place under the Directory during the latter phases of the French Revolution.
- Estonia and Latvia: at their founding as states in 1918– 1919, they expropriate the large estates of Baltic German landowners, much of which became smallholdings.
- Romania: After failed attempts at land reform by Mihail Kogalniceanu in the years immediately after Romanian unification in 1863, a major land reform finally occurred in 1921.
- Scotland the Land Reform Act (Scotland) was passed in 2003, it ends the historic legacy of feudal law and creates a framework for rural or croft communities right to buy land in their area.
4.4 Sub-Saharan Africa
- Namibia: A limited land reform has been a hallmark of the regime of Sam Nujoma; legislation passed in September 1994, with a "willing seller, willing buyer" approach.
- South Africa: Land reform was one of the promises made by the African National Congress when it came to power in South Africa in 1994. The system is based on fair price system, land is bought from its owners (willing seller) by the government (willing-buyer) and redistributed.
- Zimbabwe: Very controversial efforts at land reform in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe has moved steadily from a "willing seller, willing buyer" approach toward outright expropriation, often for the benefit of people close to the government.
4.5 North America
4.6 Asia
- China: The thorough land reform launched by the Communist Party of China in 1946, three years before the foundation of the People's Republic of China, won the party millions of supporters among the poor and middle peasantry. The land and other property of landlords were expropriated and redistributed so that each household in a rural village would have a comparable holding. This agrarian revolution was made famous in the West by William Hinton's book Fanshen.
- Japan: After World War II, the U.S. occupying forces conducted a land reform in Japan.
- Taiwan: In the years after World War II, Chiang Kai-shek conducted land reform at the insistence of the U.S. This course of action was made possible, in part, by the fact that many of the large landowners were Japanese who had fled and also by the fact that the Kuomintang were mostly from the mainland and had few ties to the remaining indigenous landowners.
- Vietnam: In the years after World War II, even before the formal division of Vietnam, generally successful and popular land reform boosted the popularity of North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, especially when contrasted with failed attempts at land reform in South Vietnam under Ngo Dinh Diem.
