Africa · Sultanates, sharifs and the Atlantic trade
British Empire
Colonial empire · 1706–1999
The British Empire was the largest empire in history: at its height it held 412 million people — 23 percent of the world's population — in 1913, and by 1920 covered 35.5 million km², nearly a quarter of Earth's land. Its African dimension was foundational.
- Type
- Colonial empire
- Existed
- 1706–1999
- Shown on the map
- 1706–1999
- Peak area
- 13.9M km²
- Region
- Africa
Overview
The British Empire was the largest empire in history: at its height it held 412 million people — 23 percent of the world's population — in 1913, and by 1920 covered 35.5 million km², nearly a quarter of Earth's land. Its African dimension was foundational. English involvement began with Hawkins's and Drake's slave raids off West Africa in the 1560s; the Royal African Company, chartered in 1672, carried roughly 3.5 million Africans across the Atlantic — about a third of the entire transatlantic trade — from forts such as James Island, Accra, and Bunce Island, and Britain secured the asiento contract in 1713. Yet the empire also led abolition: the slave trade was banned in 1807, Sierra Leone became a colony for freed slaves in 1808, and the Slavery Abolition Act took effect in 1833–34.
History
The 1815 settlements after Napoleon added the Cape Colony (from the Dutch), Mauritius, and the Seychelles. Through the "imperial century" of 1815–1914, Britain was the dominant power in the Scramble for Africa, pursuing the Cape-to-Cairo ambition of a continuous band of territory: Egypt (occupied 1882), the Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Rhodesia, and the South African colonies won in the Boer Wars. West African campaigns destroyed resistant states — the Anglo-Ashanti wars culminating in the annexation of Asante in 1901, and the Benin Expedition of 1897. The First World War added German colonies (Tanganyika, South West Africa, parts of Togo and Cameroon) as mandates.
Decline and legacy
Decolonization after 1945 swept Africa: Ghana (1957) led, and Macmillan's "wind of change" speech (1960) acknowledged the tide; most African colonies were independent by the mid-1960s, though Rhodesia's white-settler UDI dragged on until Zimbabwe in 1980. The 1956 Suez Crisis had already confirmed imperial decline. The empire's successor institution, the Commonwealth, endures, and the 1997 Hong Kong handover marked its symbolic end — leaving a legacy of English language, parliamentary and legal systems, and borders that still shape Africa.
Common questions
- What was the British Empire?
- The British Empire was the largest empire in history: at its height it held 412 million people — 23 percent of the world's population — in 1913, and by 1920 covered 35.5 million km², nearly a quarter of Earth's land. Its African dimension was foundational.
- When did the British Empire exist?
- The British Empire existed 1706–1999. On this map it is drawn 1706–1999.
- How large was the British Empire?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the British Empire covered about 14 million km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
- Who ruled the British Empire?
- The 1815 settlements after Napoleon added the Cape Colony (from the Dutch), Mauritius, and the Seychelles. Through the "imperial century" of 1815–1914, Britain was the dominant power in the Scramble for Africa, pursuing the Cape-to-Cairo ambition of a continuous band of territory: Egypt (occupied 1882), the Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Rhodesia, and the South African colonies won in the Boer Wars.
- How did the British Empire end?
- Decolonization after 1945 swept Africa: Ghana (1957) led, and Macmillan's "wind of change" speech (1960) acknowledged the tide; most African colonies were independent by the mid-1960s, though Rhodesia's white-settler UDI dragged on until Zimbabwe in 1980. The 1956 Suez Crisis had already confirmed imperial decline.
Sources
Every source below was consulted while writing this entry.
- British Empire — Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire
This entry was written from the sources above and last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
See the British Empire in its world
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