Challenge: Number of Colonizing states

Anyone got half a clue how many states it would be possible to get colonizing to a degree that it gives succesful states gaining independence? (say, a german speaking colony big enough to become a 'self-sufficient' state)
 
There isn't really a set number, it's just which states are able to reasonably achieve the creation of colonies. Being a colonialist state requires:

a. Access to the ocean, so that the state can send out ships. Bonus points for having access to the ocean that isn't choked off (For example, a country that had to go through the Straights of Gibraltar to reach the Americas is going to have problems if Spain*, Portugal*, Morocco*, or whoever has Gibraltar doesn't like them).

b. Secondly, they need some sort of navy to protect shipping to and from the colonies, and to protect the colonies themselves.

c. Population-the home country must have an 'extra' population to supply settlers, or at least employees for a company to manage the colony, as well as enough soldiers to defend that colony.

d. Desire to colonize-a state may not want colonies at all, or may want colonies but will not consider them worth defending and will abandon them, like France did with Quebec.

e. Ability to organize colonization-a state must have some power that is capable of organizing and financing colonial ventures, whether it's a merchant collective looking for cash, noblemen looking for land, or a monarch looking for glory.

In your Germany example, IOTL Germany was too disorganized (Holy Roman constitution and all that), choked off from the sea by Denmark, and for a while during the colonial era did not really have the surplus population for a colonial adventure (30 Year's War killing a quarter of the population). However, *Germany could conceivably create a colony that becomes powerful enough to be independent.
 
Out side of the Dutch and Germans from colonizing you might be able to get the Irish to colonize if they can get a hold of themselves and hold off the English. Also the Danish/Norwegians might colonize as well. But those are the only ones from Europe who I can see as Colonizing.
 
Well first, we have to determine what a colonizing state is (presumably, you mean overseas as opposed to a land-based empire), when we're talking about (I'm assuming the 16th Century through to the modern day), and how many there have been at any one given time.

The obvious: English/British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, German, Danish, Swedish, Russian, Italian, Ottoman, Japanese, American

The not-so-obvious:
Austro-Hungarian (Nicobar Islands, etc)
Courlander (Tobago and the Gambia)
Norwegian (a few uninhabited islands in the Arctic and Antarctic)
Scottish (Panama)
Knights of Malta (the Caribbean)
Omani (East Africa and the Persian Gulf Coast all the way to Gwadar)
Moroccan (the Mediterranean, the Sahel, temporary occupation of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands)
Egyptian (North Africa, Sub-Saharan East Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean)
Persian (the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia)
Chinese (Central Asia, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Siberia)
Australian (a few Pacific territories)
New Zealander (ditto)
Hawaiian (the Solomon Islands, Samoa)
Mexican (Clipperton, Central America)
Chilean (Easter Island)
Ecuadorian (the Galapagos)

Who else could have had some kind of overseas empire? Possibly Brazil in Africa, Peru in the South Pacific, Tamils or other Southern Indians around the Indian Ocean (as they did in medieval times), maybe Yemen or Ethiopia, perhaps a power based in Southeast Asia.
 
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