11 ATLASES

History of the United Kingdom in maps

The United Kingdom as it appears in 11 interactive history atlases, from 264 BC to 2015: Britannia, England, Great Britain and Ulster, United Kingdom, Britain. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.

What was the United Kingdom before it was United Kingdom? The sections below follow this land through every era covered by the Maps of History atlases: who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed. Each line links to the dated map. Modern borders serve as an approximation, as each atlas says on the map itself.

Britannia (mod. Britain) · Ancient Rome

An invasion of Britannia offered an emperor prestige, and Roman forces entered in AD 43. Hadrian’s Wall, begun in 122, later marked a northern frontier. Roman administration withdrew by 410, after which towns, coin use and literacy contracted sharply, though at varying rates and to varying degrees. How much of Britannia’s Roman way of life had depended on the imperial state? Its later history makes the question difficult to avoid (Chs. 10, 12).

ANCIENT ROME: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

England (mod. Britain) · Crusades

England’s part in the crusades is essentially the story of Richard the Lionheart. On the Third Crusade he defeated Saladin at Arsuf and Jaffa and seized Cyprus, spending his kingdom’s treasure and his own liberty in the effort. He judged, correctly, that Jerusalem could not be held and accepted a treaty providing access to it. Richard saw Egypt as the real key to securing Jerusalem, an insight that drove every crusade after him.

CRUSADES: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Great Britain and Ulster · Industrial Revolution

Britain became the first industrial nation and, for a century, the workshop of the world. Coal, cotton, iron and steam changed the commercial island so profoundly that by 1851 most of its people lived in towns. Cheap coal, high wages, an Atlantic empire and a culture of tinkering helped sustain its lead. The costs fell in part on child workers, handloom weavers and the enslaved people who grew its cotton. By 1914 Germany and the United States made more, while Britain had become the world’s banker.

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

United Kingdom · Age of Revolutions

Britain spent 22 years fighting France, using subsidies and blockade as well as Wellington’s armies. After 1815 it became the world’s banker. Reform in 1832 and the abolition of slavery in 1833 came without the barricades seen on the continent, even as British factories created a working class whose questions would dominate 1848. Britain had lost an empire in America; elsewhere it was building a larger one.

AGE OF REVOLUTIONS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

United Kingdom · Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia

MEIJI JAPAN AND POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

United Kingdom · WWI

Britain went to war for Belgium and the balance of power with an army of six divisions. By the end it had conscription, a four-million-man citizen force, and decisive weapons in the blockade, the convoy and the 1918 BEF, arguably history’s best army by armistice day (Ch. 12). The price included 880,000 dead, the Somme’s first day and debt to America. Britain’s century as unchallenged hegemon had ended.

WWI: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

United Kingdom · Road to WW2

Britain had a global empire to defend, a treasury weakened by the Depression and a deep memory of 1916. It tried to preserve the status quo with measures short of force: naval deals, limited sanctions and the agreement at Munich. Then it guaranteed Poland and meant it. Alone with its empire from June 1940 to June 1941, Britain won the war's first defensive victory over southern England and waited for the allies its enemies would provide.

ROAD TO WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

United Kingdom · WW2

Britain was the only power to fight Germany from the first day of the war to the last. In 1940 the Channel, the RAF and radar helped save it; Britain went on to keep the Atlantic open and provide the launchpad for D-Day. Victory came at immense cost: Britain emerged bankrupt, having exhausted its resources and empire, with decolonization ahead.

WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

United Kingdom · Cold War

Britain won the war but began the era bankrupt and under rationing. Within three years it was handing burdens in Greece, India, and Palestine to Washington. Suez (Ch. 5) ended its pretensions to independent world power. Britain remained America’s closest ally, with nuclear weapons and a permanent seat, managing its decline with more grace abroad than at home.

COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

United Kingdom · Feminism and the Tunisian Revolution

Britain’s second wave began with the Dagenham machinists on the factory floor in 1968. The Ruskin conference followed in 1970; the Equal Pay Act came into force in 1975, the year of the Sex Discrimination Act. Britain’s Abortion Act of 1967 also drew women from France, Spain and Ireland. Britain signed CEDAW in 1981 but ratified it only in April 1986, which explains its grey-tan color on the 1985 map.

FEMINISM AND THE TUNISIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Britain · Refugee crises

Britain occupied a zone of Germany, governed Palestine under mandate and accepted refugees for resettlement. In its zone lay Friedland and Bergen-Belsen; it also handed over Cossacks at Lienz and intercepted Jewish refugees bound for Palestine. About 86,000 DPs were recruited as “European Volunteer Workers” for mines, farms and textile mills. Britain took more than 20,000 Hungarians in 1956, while in the 1980s British Hong Kong screened and returned Vietnamese.

REFUGEE CRISES: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Related

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• History of the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus NEXT
• Ancient Rome timeline and maps
• Crusades timeline and maps
• Industrial Revolution timeline and maps
• Age of Revolutions timeline and maps
• Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia timeline and maps
• WWI timeline and maps