Countries of Commonwealth

Countries of Commonwealth

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally known as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 53 member states, nearly all of them former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Commonwealth Secretariat, which focuses on intergovernmental aspects, and the Commonwealth Foundation, which focuses on non-governmental relations between member states.

The Commonwealth dates back to the first half of the 20th century with the decolonisation of the British Empire through increased self-governance of its territories. It was originally created as the British Commonwealth of Nations through the Balfour Declaration at the 1926 Imperial Conference, and formalised by the United Kingdom through the Statute of Westminster in 1931. The current Commonwealth of Nations was formally constituted by the London Declaration in 1949, which modernised the community, and established the member states as "free and equal".

The human symbol of this free association is the Head of the Commonwealth, currently Queen Elizabeth II, and the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting appointed Charles, Prince of Wales to be her designated successor, although the position is not technically hereditary. The Queen is the head of state of 16 member states, known as the Commonwealth realms, while 32 other members are republics and five others have different monarchs.

Member states have no legal obligations to one another. Instead, they are united by English language, history, culture and their shared values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. These values are enshrined in the Commonwealth Charterand promoted by the quadrennial Commonwealth Games.

The countries of the Commonwealth cover more than 29,958,050 km2 (11,566,870 sq mi), equivalent to 20% of the world's land area, and span all six inhabited continents.

Under the formula of the London Declaration, Queen Elizabeth II is the Head of the Commonwealth, a title that is by law a part of Elizabeth's royal titles in each of the Commonwealth realms, the 16 members of the Commonwealth that recognise the Queen as their monarch. When the monarch dies, the successor to the crown does not automatically become Head of the Commonwealth. However, at their meeting in April 2018, Commonwealth leaders agreed that Prince Charles should succeed his mother as head. The position is symbolic, representing the free association of independent members, the majority of which (31 [Disagrees with 32 stated above.] are republics, and five have monarchs of different royal houses (Brunei, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malaysia, and Tonga).

Membres

The Commonwealth comprises 53 countries, across all continents. The members have a combined population of 2.4 billion people, almost a third of the world population, of whom 1.26 billion live in India, 220 million live in Pakistan and 94% live in Asia and Africa combined. After India and Pakistan, the next-largest Commonwealth countries by population are Nigeria (170 million), Bangladesh (156 million), and the United Kingdom (65 million). Tuvalu is the smallest member, with about 10,000 people.