The Portuguese, the Dutch and the Spanish were the first imperial powers and dominated exploration in the 16th century. It was primarily to compete and amass wealth that Britain began developing a navy in the 17th century. The British East India Company, based in India, was successfully established in 1600 and came to hold a monopoly on eastern trade.

By the 19th century, however, Britain had not only maintained and expanded its monopoly (the British East India Company was absolved in 1858), but was the strongest naval power and came to establish the most widespread overseas empire.

British colonialism peaked in the 19th century with colonial rule or significant involvement in every continent, in particular Africa, India, China and the Americas and Caribbean. These countries are now independent but many remain under the symbolic British Commonwealth.