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The following table gives gross domestic product (GDP) estimates of the British Empire and its territories in 1870 and 1913, as a percentage of the world economy and the empire's economy, along with comparisons to the United States and Russian Empire. The British imperial territory with the largest economy in 1870 was British India (including ...
The precise extent of either empire at its greatest territorial expansion is a matter of debate among scholars. Several empires in human history have been contenders for the largest of all time, depending on definition and mode of measurement. Possible ways of measuring size include area, population, economy, and power.
The British Empire refers to the possessions, dominions, and dependencies under the control of the Crown.In addition to the areas formally under the sovereignty of the British monarch, various "foreign" territories were controlled as protectorates; territories transferred to British administration under the authority of the League of Nations or the United Nations; and miscellaneous other ...
Under the terms of the concluding Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919, the empire reached its greatest extent with the addition of 1.8 million sq mi (4.7 million km 2) and 13 million new subjects. [160] The colonies of Germany and the Ottoman Empire were distributed to the Allied powers as League of Nations mandates.
The major multi-volume multi-author coverage of the history of the British Empire is the Oxford History of the British Empire (1998–2001), five-volume set, plus a companion series. [277] Douglas Peers says the series demonstrates that, "As a field of historical inquiry, imperial history is clearly experiencing a renaissance." [278]
By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 percent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km 2 (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area.
London poured money into railway building—a veritable bubble, but one with permanent value. Thomas Brassey brought British railway engineering to the world, with construction crews that in the 1840s employed 75,000 men across Europe. Every nation copied the British model. Brassey expanded throughout the British Empire and Latin America.
An elaborate map of the British Empire in 1886, marked in pink, the traditional colour for imperial British dominions on maps. Pax Britannica (Latin for ' British Peace ', modelled after Pax Romana) refers to the relative peace between the great powers in the time period roughly bounded by the Napoleonic Wars and World War I.