How Big Was the British Empire?
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The story in brief
Did one empire cover a quarter of Earth's land? This Short runs through how big the British Empire got, and how it shrank, in under a minute.
Britain's first overseas settlements came in the 1500s, and much of the empire began as company ventures: the East India Company was chartered in 1600. In the Caribbean, its colonies came to depend on the trade in enslaved people. Britain abolished that trade in 1807, and slavery in 1833. All the while, it kept growing: Australia, the Cape, India, Singapore.
At its peak, around 1920, it covered about a quarter of the world's land, by one widely used estimate. In 1957, Ghana became the first British colony in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence, and in 1997, Hong Kong returned to China. By 1997, almost all of it was gone.
Sources
- Taagepera 1997, International Studies Quarterly 41(3): https://doi.org/10.1111/0020-8833.00053
- Amy J. Lloyd, "The British Empire" (Gale Primary Sources): https://www.gale.com/academic/essays/politics/colonialism-and-empire/amy-j-lloyd-british-empire
- Britannica, "British Empire": https://www.britannica.com/place/British-Empire
Maps
- MacDonald Gill, Highways of Empire, poster map (London: Empire Marketing Board, 1927)
- John Bartholomew, British Empire throughout the world exhibited in one view (Edinburgh/London: A. Fullarton & Co., [1850s]); Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, item 98687124
Full image and music credits are in the video description on YouTube.
Narration is AI-generated. Scripts are AI-assisted and fact-checked against the sources listed.
Card artwork: Ink Before Dust (own work).
