The British Empire, 1600–1997: Four Centuries of Rule Overseas on One Map

From the James River to a Quarter of the World

In May 1607 the Virginia Company of London founded Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. Three centuries later Britain ruled about a quarter of the world's land, from Canada and the Caribbean to India, Africa, Australia and the Pacific. By 1997, when Hong Kong was handed back to China, almost all of it had become independent, most of it inside the Commonwealth.

This map follows those four centuries and colours every territory by the kind of British rule it was under: trading companies first, then the Crown, then self-governing dominions, protectorates and League of Nations mandates, and finally independence. The empire reaches its largest extent in 1921, between the creation of the mandates after the First World War and the founding of the Irish Free State in 1922.

Companies and Colonies, 1600–1763

The early empire was built largely by chartered companies. The East India Company opened its first factory in India, at Surat, in 1613. In America, Plymouth Colony followed Jamestown in 1620, and Jamaica was taken from Spain in 1655. In 1670 Charles II granted the Hudson's Bay Company the vast drainage basin of Hudson Bay, known as Rupert's Land. In 1707 England and Scotland united as Great Britain.

The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) brought the largest gains yet. In 1757 Robert Clive's victory at Plassey made the East India Company the kingmaker of Bengal, and in 1759 James Wolfe took Quebec on the Plains of Abraham. On the map the American seaboard grows in steps until the Proclamation Line of 1763.

Losing America, Turning East, 1763–1857

The thirteen American colonies declared independence on 4 July 1776, and the surrender at Yorktown in 1781 ended the major fighting. The First Fleet founded a penal colony at Sydney Cove in 1788, and Australia fills in from there until the whole continent is British by 1859. The fall of Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam in 1799 opened southern India to the Company, Britain took the Cape from the Dutch in 1806, and Stamford Raffles founded Singapore in 1819. Slavery was abolished in the British West Indies in 1834. The Treaty of Waitangi made New Zealand a British colony in 1840, and the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 ceded Hong Kong Island after the First Opium War.

The Crown Takes Over, 1857–1921

The rebellion of 1857 in India ended Company rule: from 1858 British India was governed by the Crown, alongside hundreds of princely states. The Hudson's Bay Company's lands passed to Canada in 1870. Settler colonies became self-governing dominions: Canada in 1867, Australia in 1901, New Zealand and Newfoundland in 1907, and South Africa in 1910, after the Second Boer War of 1899–1902.

In Africa and the Middle East, Disraeli bought the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal in 1875, and the victory at Tel el-Kebir in 1882 began the occupation of Egypt. Khartoum fell to the Mahdists in 1885, and Kitchener's victory at Omdurman in 1898 opened the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. After the First World War Britain and its dominions took over German colonies and Ottoman lands as League of Nations mandates, among them Palestine, where the Balfour Declaration of 1917 had promised support for a Jewish national home.

Dominions, War and Decolonisation, 1922–1997

The Irish Free State became a dominion in 1922, Gandhi's Salt March of 1930 opened the civil disobedience movement in India, and the Statute of Westminster of 11 December 1931 gave the dominions legislative independence. Japan took Hong Kong in December 1941 and Malaya, Singapore and Burma in 1942. India and Pakistan became independent in August 1947, the Suez Crisis followed in 1956, and in 1957 Ghana became the first British colony in sub-Saharan Africa to win independence. Macmillan's Wind of Change speech of 1960 was followed by a wave of independence across Africa and the Caribbean. Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence in 1965 takes it off the map until it returns as Zimbabwe in 1980. Britain fought the Falklands War in 1982, and on 1 July 1997 Hong Kong returned to China after 156 years of British rule.

How to Read the Map

Each colour is a kind of rule. Dark crimson is the home country: England, Great Britain from 1707 and the United Kingdom from 1801. Red is colonies and Crown possessions, ochre chartered company rule (the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Company and others), purple the self-governing dominions, orange protectorates and Indian princely states, teal League of Nations mandates and UN trust territories, and slate blue territories under military occupation or joint administration, such as Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. A pale green layer shows independent Commonwealth members, so the last frames still show a faint outline of the former empire. Markers pin battles, treaties and turning points.

Territories follow modern borders, and small islands and ports are drawn as disks so they stay visible at world scale. Early colonies show roughly the settled or garrisoned area, not their charter claims. Dominions count as independent from the Statute of Westminster in 1931, although Australia and New Zealand adopted it later. Indian princely states are approximated by modern states, and informal influence, such as in Oman, Afghanistan, Persia and the treaty ports in China, is left out.

How the Map Was Made

The map is built from about 220 units (modern countries, provinces and parts of them, plus disks for small islands and ports), each with a dated history of its status. Dates come from the Wikipedia articles on the individual territories, the Statute of Westminster and the Commonwealth's member states, cross-checked against a second, independently compiled timeline per region. Borders come from Natural Earth.

Chronological Timeline

• 1607 — Jamestown founded, the first permanent English settlement in America
• 1655 — Jamaica captured from Spain
• 1670 — Hudson's Bay Company chartered
• 1707 — Acts of Union create Great Britain
• 1757 — Battle of Plassey: the Company takes control in Bengal
• 1759 — Quebec falls
• 1776 — American Declaration of Independence
• 1788 — First Fleet reaches Sydney Cove
• 1819 — Singapore founded
• 1840 — Treaty of Waitangi
• 1842 — Treaty of Nanking cedes Hong Kong Island
• 1857–1858 — Indian Rebellion; the Crown takes over from the East India Company
• 1867 — Dominion of Canada
• 1901 — Federation of Australia
• 1921 — The empire at its greatest extent
• 1922 — Irish Free State
• 1931 — Statute of Westminster
• 1947 — Independence of India and Pakistan
• 1957 — Ghana independent
• 1982 — Falklands War
• 1997 — Hong Kong handed back to China