Why aren’t “territories” of countries that are far removed from the mainland referred to as colonies anymore? What distinguishes a territory from a colony?

Question

Why aren’t “territories” of countries that are far removed from the mainland referred to as colonies anymore? What distinguishes a territory from a colony?

In: 2

Answer 1

Technically nothing. It’s all about semantics, “colony” sounds imperialistic while “territories” could be seen less imperialistic.

Another great example of this is military. Have you ever heard of Department of Defense or Ministry of Defense? They were used to be called Ministry of War back in the day, but society doesn’t like that so we call them defense ministries now even though the job is exactly the same.