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The British diaspora consists of British people and their descendants who emigrated from the United Kingdom. The diaspora is concentrated in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa as well as parts of the Caribbean and continental Europe. A 2006 publication from the Institute for Public Policy Research estimated 5.6 million British-born people lived outside of the United Kingdom.[2][3]
After the Age of Discovery the British were one of the earliest and largest communities to emigrate out of Europe, and the British Empire's expansion during the first half of the 19th century saw an "extraordinary dispersion of the British people", with particular concentrations "in Australasia and North America".[4] The British Empire was "built on waves of migration overseas by British people",[5] who left the United Kingdom and "reached across the globe and permanently affected population structures in three continents".[4] As a result of the British colonization of the Americas, what became the United States was "easily the greatest single destination of emigrant British", but in the Federation of Australia the British experienced a birth rate higher than "anything seen before" resulting in the displacement of indigenous Australians.[4] In colonies such as Southern Rhodesia, British East Africa and Cape Colony, permanently resident British communities were established and whilst never more than a numerical minority these Britons "exercised a dominant influence" upon the culture and politics of those lands.[5] In Australia, Canada and New Zealand "people of British origin came to constitute the majority of the population" contributing to these states becoming integral to the Anglosphere.[5]
The United Kingdom Census 1861 estimated the size of the overseas British to be around 2.5 million, but concluded that most of these were "not conventional settlers" but rather "travellers, merchants, professionals, and military personnel".[4] By 1890, there were over 1.5 million further British-born people living in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.[4]
The diaspora, maximally interpreted, contains tens of millions of people, including:
  | Brits Abroad: Mapping the scale and nature of British emigration - ippr - Institute for Public Policy Research |
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