This is a list of countries with Burger King franchises. Burger King (BK) itself began as a franchise of its progenitor company, Insta-Burger King. It grew in the United States using a combination of corporate locations and franchising, before divesting itself of its corporate holdings in 2013. It began its international expansion in 1969 with a location in Canada, followed by Australia in 1971, and Europe in 1975. Latin America and South America became part of its market later in that decade, Asia followed in the 1980s, and Northern Africa and the Middle East followed shortly thereafter. Sub-Saharan Africa and the former nations of the Iron Curtain came much later, beginning in the late 1990s and continuing into the 2010s. As of 2014, Burger King operates in almost every country in the Western Hemisphere, and most of Europe and East Asia. It has embarked on a plan to base a good portion of its future growth in the BRIC Nations of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with plans to open more than 3000 locations in three of those four countries. Burger King also has a longstanding presence at U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force installations worldwide, dating back to the 1980s under a contract with Army and Air Force Exchange Service. Today, while other chains such as Taco Bell, Popeyes, and Subway have a presence on military bases, virtually every major Army and Air Force installation hosts a BK restaurant. History Burger King was first founded in Jacksonville, Florida In 1953 as Insta-Burger King. Shortly after the acquisition of the chain by Pillsbury in 1969, Burger King opened its first Canadian restaurant in Windsor, Ontario, in 1969. Other international locations followed soon after: Oceania in 1971 with its Australian franchise Hungry Jack's, and Europe in 1975 with a restaurant in Madrid, Spain. Beginning in 1982, BK and its franchisees began operating stores in several East Asian countries, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. Due to high competition, all of the Japanese locations were closed in 2001; however, BK reentered the Japanese market in June 2007. BK's Central and South American operations began in Mexico in the late 1970s, and by the early 1980s it was operating locations in Caracas, Venezuela, Santiago, Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina. While Burger King lags behind McDonald's in international locations by over 12,000 stores, by 2008 it had managed to become the largest chain