To establish a settlement of people from one country in a territory controlled by another country, or to take over and control a place.
From French 'coloniser,' based on Latin 'colonia' (settlement). The term emerged in its modern form during the 15th-16th centuries as European exploration expanded, though Romans used similar terms for their settlements.
Colonization had devastating effects on indigenous peoples, erasing cultures and ecosystems—but the word itself is now also used in ecology to describe how species naturally spread, like how bacteria colonize new environments. The same word carries both human history's complexity and nature's restless expansion.
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