British Commonwealth

  

Commonwealth of Nations
Flag
Headquarters	Marlborough House, London, United Kingdom
Working language	English
Type	Voluntary association
Member states	38 states TBD
Leaders
• Head	Charles III
• Secretary-General	TBD
• Chair-in-Office	TBD
Establishment
• 1926 Imperial Conference	23 November 1926
• Statute of Westminster	11 December 1931
• London Declaration	28 April 1949
Website thecommonwealth.org

The British Commonwealth, formally the Commonwealth of Nations and often simply called the Commonwealth, is a political association of 38 member states that were former colonies of the British Empire. The Commonwealth's administration primarily consists of the Commonwealth Secretariat and includes numerous institutions and non-governmental organizations that promote economic and cultural cooperation among the member states. The head of the Commonwealth is always the sovereign of the United Kingdom, currently King Charles III.

The idea for the British Commonwealth was proposed as early as the 1880s, as parts of the British Empire started becoming self-governing dominions, following the example of Canada in 1867. These early suggestions were developed by the Round Table movement, the associates of Cecil Rhodes, and led to the creation of the British Commonwealth of Nations at the 1926 Imperial Conference in London, formalized by the Statue of Westminster 1931. The 1949 London Declaration stated that all members of the Commonwealth are "free and equal," but also that the United Kingdom remains the "first among equals."

The Commonwealth is primarily a cultural grouping, tied by their use of the English language and other aspects of English culture, but the Commonwealth Charter also cites the promotion of human rights and the rule of law as goals of its member states. The Commonwealth Games, an Olympic Games-style multi-sport event among its member states, take place every four years.

Membership

• Antigua and Barbuda
• Bahamas
• Barbados
• Belize
• Cyprus
• Delta Republic
• Dominica
• East African Federation
• Eswatini
• Gabon
• Grenada
• Guyana
• Jamaica
• Lesotho
• Malawi
• Maldives
• Manitoba
• Malta
• Marshall Islands
• Mauritius
• Namibia
• Nauru
• New South Wales
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Samoa
• Seychelles
• Sierra Leone
• Singapore
• South Africa
• Sri Lanka
• Patagonia
• Togo
• Trinidad and Tobago
• United Kingdom
• Vanuatu
• Zambia

See also

• Columbia realm

This page uses material from the Wikipedia page Commonwealth of Nations, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).