About TreatyDB

TreatyDB is a reference guide to 107 treaties and international agreements signed between 1494 and 2020. It covers the settlements that redrew borders (Westphalia, Utrecht, Versailles, Trianon), the purchases and boundary treaties that built the United States, the unequal treaties imposed on Qing China and Japan, the founding treaties of NATO and the European Union, the arms control agreements of the Cold War, and the environmental and trade regimes of today.

What each entry contains

Every treaty page gives the year it was signed, a broad type (peace, border, alliance, arms control, trade and so on), the region it mainly concerns, the principal parties, and a short account of what the treaty did and why it still matters. Years are signing years; some agreements entered into force later, which the description notes where it matters.

How the collection was chosen

The list favours agreements that historians and international lawyers treat as turning points, rather than aiming to be complete: the UN Treaty Series alone holds more than 50,000 instruments. A few entries, such as the Edict of Nantes and the Budapest Memorandum, are not treaties in the strict legal sense but are included because they functioned as settlements between parties. Facts were checked against standard references such as the treaty texts, Encyclopaedia Britannica and national archives; spotted errors are corrected as they are found.

Collection by type

• Peace: 46
• Arms Control: 12
• Trade: 10
• Border: 8
• Alliance: 8
• Integration: 7
• Security: 5
• Environment: 4
• Colonial: 3
• Independence: 2
• Separation: 1
• Law of the Sea: 1

Collection by region

• Europe: 42
• Global: 22
• Americas: 17
• Asia: 13
• Middle East: 8
• Africa: 3
• Oceania: 2

Collection by century

• 15th century: 1
• 16th century: 3
• 17th century: 6
• 18th century: 6
• 19th century: 27
• 20th century: 58
• 21th century: 6