page_title: Scramble for Africa
section_title: United Kingdom
hierarchical_section_title: Scramble for Africa / African colonies listed by colonising power / United Kingdom
caption_attribution_description: Opening of the railroad to Umtali
context_page_description: The Scramble for Africa, also called the Partition of Africa or the Conquest of Africa, was the invasion, occupation, division, and colonisation of African territory by European powers during a short period known to historians as the New Imperialism. In 1870, only 10 percent of Africa was under formal European control; by 1914 this had increased to almost 90 percent of the continent, with only Ethiopia and Liberia remaining independent, the latter of which was a former United States colony. The European colonialists had several motives: a desire for valuable natural resources, the quest for national prestige, rivalry between European powers, and religious missionary zeal. Internal African native politics also played a role.
  The Berlin Conference of 1884, which regulated European colonisation and trade in Africa, is usually referred to as the starting point of the Scramble for Africa. Consequent to the political and economic rivalries among the European empires in the last quarter of the 19th century, partitioning Africa was how the Europeans avoided going to war over it.
context_section_description: The British were primarily interested in maintaining secure communication lines to India, which led to initial interest in Egypt and South Africa. Once these two areas were secure, it was the intent of British colonialists such as Cecil Rhodes to establish a Cape-Cairo railway and to exploit mineral and agricultural resources. Control of the Nile was viewed as a strategic and commercial advantage.
  Egypt
  British Cyrenaica (1943-1951, now part of Libya)
  British Tripolitania (1943-1951, now part of Libya)
  Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956)
  British Somaliland (now part of Somalia)
  British East Africa:
  Kenya Colony
  Uganda Protectorate
  Tanzania :
  Tanganyika Territory (1919–61)
  Zanzibar
  British Mauritius
  Bechuanaland (now Botswana)
  Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
  Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia)
  British Seychelles
  British South Africa
  South Africa :
  Transvaal Colony
  Cape Colony
  Colony of Natal
  Orange River Colony
  South-West Africa (from 1915, now Namibia)
  British West Africa
  Gambia Colony and Protectorate
  Sierra Leone
  Nigeria
  British Togoland (1916–56, today part of Ghana)
  Cameroons (1922–61, now part of Cameroon and Nigeria)
  Gold Coast (British colony) (now Ghana)
  Nyasaland (now Malawi)
  Basutoland (now Lesotho)
  Swaziland (now Eswatini)
  St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
caption: Opening of the railway in Rhodesia, 1899
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