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Map of the world showing the extent of the British Empire in 1886. Between 1815 and 1914, a period referred to as Britain's "imperial century" by some historians, [108] around 10 million sq mi (26 million km 2) of territory and roughly 400 million people were added to the British Empire. [109]
The British Empire (red) and Mongol Empire (blue) were the largest and second-largest empires in history, respectively. The precise extent of either empire at its greatest territorial expansion is a matter of debate among scholars.
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 British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
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.
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]
Under the leadership of David Lloyd George, the British Empire reached its greatest extent, covering a fifth of the world's land surface and a quarter of its population. [85] By the mid-1920s, most of the British population could listen to BBC radio programmes.
Animated map of the territorial evolution of Australia. The first colonies of the British Empire on the continent of Australia were the penal colony of New South Wales, founded in 1788, and the Swan River Colony (later renamed Western Australia), founded in 1829.