The map shows countries that received assistance under the Marshall Plan, formally titled the European Recovery Program (ERP). From April 1948 to June 1952, the ERP invested more than $13 billion into reconstruction projects in 18 countries.

Marshall Plan projects were proposed and coordinated by a committee of recipient nations, ensuring regional cooperation. For every U.S. dollar invested, member nations had to invest an equivalent amount in their own currency in reconstruction projects. European leaders seized on the plan to help them achieve long-sought goals of closer economic and political cooperation.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, speaking September 19, 1946, in Zurich, spoke eloquently for European unity. "Among the victors there is a ballet of voices, among the vanquished the sullen silence of despair," he said. The remedy, he said, was "to recreate the European fabric, or as much of it at we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety, and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe."