Remaining Territories
Within twenty years of the partition and independence in 1947 of British India (considered to be the most important colonial possession), most of the Empire's territories had achieved full independence. Today only a handful of colonies (since 2002 known as "British Overseas Territories") remain under British rule; the term "British Empire" is no longer used to describe these.
Almost all of the British Overseas Territories are islands (or groups of islands) with a small population; some are in very remote areas of the world. Of the territories with a permanent population, all have at least some degree of internal self-government, with the United Kingdom retaining responsibility for defence and external relations.
The fourteen British Overseas Territories are:
- Anguilla
- Bermuda
- British Antarctic Territory
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- British Virgin Islands
- Cayman Islands
- Falkland Islands
- Gibraltar
- Montserrat
- Pitcairn Islands
- Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
- South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia
Read more about this topic: Territorial Evolution Of The British Empire
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“For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the state into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)