Updates on the world's countries and borders
This is an article for those interested in what's changed in the map of the Schengen Area since our previous update in 2020. From now on, you can always find the latest version of this map in our Schengen zone explainer article.
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| Three southeastern European countries - Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria - have joined the Schengen Area in recent years. Map by Evan Centanni, from blank map by Ssolbergj. License: CC BY-SA |
What is the "Schengen Area"? What's the difference between Schengen and the EU? And which countries does Schengen include? Read on for all the answers, explained in plain English!
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| Map by Evan Centanni, from blank map by Ssolbergj. License: CC BY-SA |
If you've traveled in Europe anytime in the last few decades, you probably know that many of Europe's countries have open borders, without any kind of customs or ID check required to cross from one country to another. That's because of the Schengen Agreement, a 1985 treaty that's since been expanded and made into a law of the European Union (EU).
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| Map by Evan Centanni, from blank map by Ssolbergj. License: CC BY-SA |
Europe's continental union is probably most famous to outsiders for its euro currency and Schengen free-travel area. But it's actually much more than that: After all, the UK, whose exit from the EU in 2020 created a massive political storm, was never part of the Schengen Area or euro currency zone to begin with.
Several significant shifts in territorial control have affected Somalia since December 2024. Most recently, forces of Somalia's Al Qaeda affiliated rival government, Al Shabaab, began
sweeping across Middle Shabelle region on the heels of an African Union
troop reduction and mission downgrade, erasing most of the pro-federal
coalition's 2022 gains there. It's also captured key areas in Hiran and
Lower Shabelle regions, leading to fears that capital city Mogadishu
could be at risk.
Before that a small but deadly conflict between the federal government and Jubaland state left the southern region essentially outside the country's main coalition. Then, Puntland state carried out a remarkably effective offensive (known as "Operation Hilaac") gutting the core of so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL) control in the northern mountains, likely uprooting the global network's central financial hub.
See all this and more on the latest update to PolGeoNow's concise, professional Somalia control map, which includes a summary and timeline of territorial changes and key events since our previous Somalia map report illustrating the situation in June 2024, with sources cited.
This map and report are premium content, available to paid subscribers of the PolGeoNow Conflict Mapping Service.
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Exclusive map report includes:
(To see other maps in this series, view all Somalia updates.)
This is the second of a set of three Somalia reports published in June 2025 covering the past two years of Somalia's civil war, here mapping the situation as of late June 2024. See also our simultaneously-published reports illustrating the situation as of August 2023 and June 2025.
To access our full catalog of map reports covering control in Somalia and many other countries, sign up for our Control Map Subscription Service
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available to individual subscribers at just US$19.99 per month!
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Base map by Koen Adams of onestopmap.com, with design and control by Evan Centanni. To use this map in your own materials, please contact us to arrange permission.
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This report covers the period in Somalia’s civil war from August 26, 2023 to June 28, 2024, before the events of early 2025, which would see a major Al Shabaab resurgence in central Somalia, as well as the retreat of the so-called “Islamic State” (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) during Puntland state’s “Operation Lightning’” (Hilaac) in the remote mountains of the north. In retrospect, the time from mid-2023 to mid-2024 now looks like a period of relative calm – particularly as the war between Somaliland and SSC-Khatumo settled into a state of frozen conflict - but there were still a number of important developments, which are summarized in the following paragraphs and covered in more detail in the event timeline further below (where additional sources are cited in the form of in-line links). In brief, this period included:
