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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. [155] The colonies of Germany and the Ottoman Empire were distributed to the Allied powers as League of Nations mandates.
The first Empire was founded in the 17th century, and based on the migration of large numbers of settlers to the American colonies, as well as the development of the sugar plantation colonies in the West Indies. It ended with the British loss of the American War for Independence. The second Empire had already started to emerge.
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 ...
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.
Below are lists of the countries and territories that were formerly ruled or administered by the United Kingdom or part of the British Empire (including military occupations that did not retain the pre-war central government), with their independence days. Some countries did not gain their independence on a single date, therefore the latest day ...
In 1763, victory in the Seven Years' War led to the growth of the First British Empire. With defeat by the United States, France and Spain in the War of American Independence, Great Britain lost its 13 American colonies and rebuilt a Second British Empire based in Asia and Africa.
They called their land Engla land, meaning "land of the English", by Æthelweard Latinized Anglia, from an original Anglia vetus, the purported homeland of the Angles (called Angulus by Bede). [8] The name Engla land became England by haplology during the Middle English period ( Engle-land , Engelond ). [ 9 ]
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.