The 1885 Berlin Conference was convened to partition Africa among European powers. The conference was held at the invitation of Germany's Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and attended by representatives of 14 European nations, as well as the United States. The main goal of the conference was to establish rules for the colonization and trade of Africa among the European powers, without any input from African leaders. The conference is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in the colonization of Africa, as it led to the carving up of the continent into artificial states that did not take into account the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural boundaries of the indigenous populations.