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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.
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 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 has been the foremost economic power for most of the 19th century. As a result of the Industrial Revolution which began in the United Kingdom, Britain became the wealthiest country in the world by the late 18th century, and was a leading trading nation and manufacturing power .
However, the United States gave its support. The Boer republics were merged into Union of South Africa in 1910; it had internal self-government but its foreign policy was controlled by London and was an integral part of the British Empire. [69] A group of British prisoners, with Winston Churchill on the right
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]
The British monarch was the nominal head of the vast British Empire, which covered a quarter of the world's land area at its greatest extent in 1921. The Balfour Declaration of 1926 recognised the evolution of the Dominions of the Empire into separate, self-governing countries within a Commonwealth of Nations.
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.