The UK will hand over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in an historic move following years of negotiations between the two nations.
The deal will allow people displaced by the UK government to return home, while Mauritius will take over governance of the island.
The move is subject to finalisation of a treaty, which both sides have promised will be completed as quickly as possible — meaning there are just over a dozen British Overseas Territories remaining around the world.
Here’s a list of the overseas territories still held by the UK, from the British Antarctic Territory to Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean and the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.
Anguilla
Anguilla is a group of islands in the northern Lesser Antilles, east of Puerto Rico, consisting of the main island alongside several smaller islands and cays with no permanent population.
Believed to have first been settled by Indigenous peoples migrating from South America, Anguilla was – according to traditional accounts – first colonised by English settlers from nearby Saint Kitts beginning in 1650.
Having been federated with Saint Kitts and Nevis since the late 1800s, Anguillans declared their separation from Saint Kitts following a referendum in 1967, in what became known as the Anguillan Revolution. In 1980, Anguilla finally formally separated from Saint Kitts and Nevis to become a separate British Crown colony, now known as a British overseas territory.
Its population as of 2024 is around 15,000.
Bermuda
An archipelago consisting of 181 islands with a total land area of about 54 square kilometres, Bermuda is among the most populated and most wealthy of the remaining British Overseas Territories.
Situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, its closest land mass – over 1,000km (600 miles) to the west-northwest – is the US state of North Carolina.
It was named after Juan de Bermúdez, the Spanish explorer who discovered it in 1505, with the islands permanently inhabited since the establishment of an English settlement at St. George’s in 1612. It has been self-governed since 1620, making it the oldest British Overseas Territory.
Bermuda’s population is estimated to be about 64,000, with a GDP per capita of over $100,000 USD.
British Antarctic Territory
The British Antarctic Territory is the largest remaining British Overseas Territory.
It encompasses a region south of 60°S latitude and between longitudes 20°W and 80°W, thereby forming a wedge shape with a land area of 1,709,400 square kilometres that extends to the South Pole.
The territory claimed by the UK overlaps the Antarctic claims of Argentina (Argentine Antarctica) and Chile (Chilean Antarctic Territory), but is recognised by Australia, France, New Zealand and Norway, whom all have territorial claims of their own on the continent.
Lacking any native peoples or known permanent inhabitants, the territory – having been demilitarised since the Antarctic Treaty was enacted in 1961 – is home largely to the staff of British Antarctic Survey scientific research and support stations, generally numbering no more than a hundred or so at any one time.
British Virgin Islands
The British Virgin Islands (BVI), officially the Virgin Islands, are a group of islands in the Caribbean, situated east of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands (USVI) and north-west of a fellow British Overseas Territory, Anguilla.
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Located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, the territory – part of the West Indies – consists of the main islands of Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Anegada and Jost Van Dyke along with over 50 other smaller islands and cays, a total of around 16 of which are inhabited.
The islands were named “Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes”, after the legend of Saint Ursula and the 11,000 virgins, by Christopher Columbus in 1493, before the name was shortened to simply “the Virgin Islands.”
They are generally thought to have first been settled by the Arawak from South America around 100 BC to AD 200, with inhabitants from a Lesser Antilles tribe then displaced when control of the various islands began changing hands between several European empires – including Britain – from the 16th century onwards, until they gained separate colony status in 1960 and became a self-governing dependent territory of the UK in 1967.
Recent population estimates indicate that the BVI has just under 40,000 inhabitants.
Cayman Islands
The most populous British Overseas Territory, the Cayman Islands are home to well over 70,000 people, according to recent estimates.
Consisting of a trio of islands – Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman – with a combined land area of about 260 square kilometres, Cayman sits south of Florida, south-southwest of Cuba and between Jamaica (to the southeast) and Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula (to the northwest).
The country’s name originates from the Arawak-Taíno peoples’ word for crocodile (caiman), though they were first believed to have been sighted, uninhabited, by a European when Christopher Columbus spotted the islands in 1503, naming them “Las Tortugas” due to the large number of turtles present around the islands at the time. Its first recorded permanent inhabitant, however, was not born there until around 1661.
In 1863, the Cayman Islands was officially declared and administered as a dependency of the Crown Colony of Jamaica, and became a separate crown colony in 1962 after Jamaica became an independent Commonwealth realm.
Cayman’s GDP per capita is estimated to be in the region of $80,000-100,000 USD.
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands is a British Overseas Territory which, like the Chagos Islands, has long been the subject of heated debate.
An archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean that has had various settlements by the French, British, Spanish and Argentineans throughout its history, the Falklands’ sovereignty status remains part of an ongoing dispute between the UK and Argentina.
Britain’s rule over the islands was reasserted in 1833 and challenged by the invasion of Argentine military forces in 1982 – the Falklands War – but remains in place today, with nearly all Falklanders voting in favour of remaining a UK overseas territory during a 2013 referendum on the matter.
Following the Chagos announcement, Falklands governor Alison Blake said the islands remain safely in British hands.
“The UK’s unwavering commitment to defend UK sovereignty [of the Falklands] remains undiminished”, she said in a statement on social media.
The population of the islands is estimated to be about 3,000-4,000 people.
Gibraltar
Another point of contention in international relations for Britain is Gibraltar.
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Officially a British Overseas Territory, located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, it is bordered to the north by Spain, which claims sovereignty over it.
Gibraltar was captured during the War of the Spanish Succession in the early 1700s, with the Spanish Crown formally ceding the territory in perpetuity – essentially forever – to the British Crown in 1713, under Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht.
Later attempts by the Spanish to recapture the territory during the thirteenth siege (1727) and the Great Siege (1779–1783) failed, with British sovereignty over Gibraltar confirmed in later treaties signed in Seville (1729) and Paris (1783).
Despite its close economic links to its northern neighbour, Gibraltarians have consistently voted in referendums over the past century to remain a sovereign territory of the UK, repeatedly rejecting Spain’s claims.
Gibraltar’s population is estimated to be just under 40,000, while it is the smallest British Overseas Territory by land area (about six square kilometres, dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar).
Montserrat
Another Caribbean entrant on the list, Monserrat forms part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies.
After falling into and out of British rule in the centuries after it first became a British colony in 1632, the island was administered as part of the federal crown colony of the British Leeward Islands from 1871 until 1958, and was then a province of the West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962, from which point it has remained under British rule through to its status today as an overseas territory.
The benefits of those links with the UK were felt in 1997 when a major volcanic eruption devastated the south side of the island, burying the capital, Plymouth, and killing 19 people while forcing over half the population to flee – many of them to mainland Britain.
Monserrat’s population is currently estimated to be around 4,000, though that is only a fraction of what it was prior to the devastating volcanic eruptions in the ’90s.
Pitcairn (Islands)
Pitcairn, also known as the Pitcairn Islands, is the sole British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean.
There are four volcanic islands – Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno – spread across several hundred kilometres of ocean, but only one – Pitcairn is inhabited.
Pitcairn is also the populated Territory with the smallest population, totaling around 40. The island’s population peaked in the late 1930s with a few hundred inhabitants, but has since declined largely due to emigration to the likes of Australia and New Zealand.
Islanders traditionally consider that Pitcairn first officially became a British colony on in November 1838.
Saint Helena, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha
Saint Helena, Ascension Island and the archipelago of Tristan da Cunha together form a single British Overseas Territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean.
The islands, of volcanic origin, were separately discovered by several Portuguese explorers in the early 1500s, and later colonised by the British. From the date its first governor arrived, in 1659, Saint Helena claims to be Britain’s second oldest remaining colony, after Bermuda.
The Territory’s name was Saint Helena and Dependencies until 1 September 2009, when a new constitution gave the three islands equal status as three territories – each with their own political systems, but under the same governor – grouped under the British Crown.
Its combined population is believed to be around 6,000.
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
South Georgia and a smaller chain of islands known as the South Sandwich Islands are found in the southern Atlantic Ocean, remote and largely inhospitable, and still belonging to the UK.
The only people to be living on South Georgia are a group of scientists from the British Antarctic Survey.
The UK claimed sovereignty over South Georgia in 1775, and the South Sandwich Islands more than a century later in 1905.
Lying just over 800 miles west of the Falkland Islands, the territory has been subject to some similar disputes with Argentina.
The South American nation occupied the islands for a brief period in 1982 during the Falklands War. The arrival of Argentine troops was one of the first episodes of the war, immediately succeeding the invasion on the Falkland Islands the day prior.
A group of Argentine civilian scrap metal workers began the occupation when they arrived at Leith Harbour on South Georgia and raised the Argentine flag, after their ship had been infiltrated by Argentine marines.
Turks and Caicos Islands
Known for their popularity as both a holiday destination and offshore financial centre, Turks and Caicos is the third largest British Overseas Territory by population, which stands at 49,309.
The islands, which boast stunning beaches and coral reefs, are found in the Atlantic between the southern Bahamas and the north coast of Haiti.
For years the islands were governed indirectly through Bermuda, the Bahamas and Jamaica, but its own governor was appointed for the first time following the independence of the Bahamas in 1973.
Britain imposed direct rule and suspended the Turks and Caicos government in 2009 after an investigation found widespread evidence of corruption. Elections in November 2012 restored home rule.
Akrotiri and Dhekelia
Officially known as the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, this is the only British overseas territories which uses the euro. Despite being under British jurisdiction, when Cyrpus switched from the Cypriot pound to the euro in 2008, Akrotiri and Dhekelia followed suit.
When Cyprus gained independence from Britain in 1960, Akrotiri and Dhekelia were established as British sovereign base areas, to play a strategic role in the Eastern Mediterranean.
RAF Akrotiri is a Royal Air Force station key to operations in the Middle East, while Dhekelia houses a British Army garrison and is also important for signals intelligence.
The population of the Sovereign Bases is 18,195. The figure is made up of around 11,000 Cypriots plus 7,195 Service and UK-based contract personnel and their families.
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Publish date : 2024-10-04 07:18:00
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