"In political science, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the metropolitan state (or "mother country").
This administrative colonial separation makes colonies neither incorporated territories, nor client states. Some colonies have been organized either as dependent territories that are not sufficiently self-governed, or as self-governed colonies controlled by colonial settlers.
The concept of a colony in ancient Greece (Ancient Greek: ἀποικία, romanized: apoikia, lit. ´home away from home´) originally referred to territories (usually relatively small urban areas) settled by Greek city-states. The city that founded a colony became known as its metropolis ("mother-city"). Since early-modern times historians, administrators and political scientists generally use the term "colony" to refer mainly to the many different overseas territories of particularly European states between the 15th and 20th century CE, with colonialism and decolonization as corresponding phenomena." - (en.wikipedia.org 30.01.2021)
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