Feature: Queen Elizabeth's 16 Countries - Political Geography Now Tuesday, June 5, 2012 Feature: Queen Elizabeth's 16 Countries Update 2016-06-10: Queen Elizabeth II is now celebrating her 90th birthday . The below article is still just as accurate as when we first published it four years ago. As Britain wraps up celebrations for the queen's Diamond Jubilee (the 60th anniversary of her coronation), you may have heard it mentioned that Elizabeth II is not just the Queen of England and the U.K., but of 15 other independent countries as well. This article maps, lists, and explains the situation of those countries. Map of the Commonwealth realms - independent countries which share the British monarchy. Current realms in dark blue, former realms in light blue. By Evan Centanni, modified from public domain Wikipedia map ( source ). Which countries share the Queen? Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is the official head of state for 16 different independent countries, known as the "Commonwealth realms" - a smaller club than the Commonwealth of Nations , many of whose members are now queenless republics.

The current Commonwealth realms, in order of independence, are: Personal flag of Queen Elizabeth II ( source ) License: CC BY-SA . Saint Kitts and Nevis Just as the sun never sets in the British Empire, the monarchy never set in the realms - each one inherits the queen's role from its time as a former British colony (with the exception of northern Papua New Guinea, which passed directly from German to Australian control before uniting with the British south in independence). Sixteen countries - is that all? Although the independent realms total 16, the number of "countries" with Elizabeth II as their queen actually increases to 19 when including the four "home nations" that make up the U.K.: England, Scotland , Wales, and Northern Ireland. But that's not all - as if 16 realms weren't enough for one woman, the Queen of England also reigns over three Crown Dependencies (Guernsey and Jersey in the Channel Islands, plus the Isle of Man) and the 14 British Overseas Territories , all of which are dependent on the U.K., but aren't considered part of the kingdom itself.

And interestingly, the Realm of New Zealand includes two associated states, the Cook Islands and Niue, which could remain royal subjects even if New Zealand itself were to fire the queen from its government. Entire reign of Queen Elizabeth II (1952-2012). Current in red, former in blue (dark = sovereign realm; light = territory or dependency). Click to enlarge. Excludes Antarctic claims. By Evan Centanni, from public domain map ( source ). Historically, there are about 20 more countries which were Commonwealth realms during parts of the last Century, but have since abandoned the monarchy to become republics. Still, the current list is longer than it used to be - at the time of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1952, there were only seven realms: the U.K., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). How can countries share the same monarch and still be sovereign states? Every one of the Commonwealth realms is a fully-fledged independent country and a member of the U.N., despite sharing the same queen. So how does that work?

Each country has separately and independently designated Elizabeth II (and her royal line) as its head of state, and the British parliament has no authority whatsoever over the governments of any of the other realms. In a certain legal sense, these 16 countries just happen to have chosen the same family to form their monarchy. To show this independence, each realm calls the queen by its own national title - she is not only the the Queen of England, but the Queen of Australia, the Queen of Canada, the Queen of the Bahamas, etc. As for Her Majesty, she's been said to be "equally at home in all of her realms". But since she has only has one physical body, she still mainly lives in the oldest realm: the U.K. In her other countries, she's represented on an everyday basis by appointed viceroys (the highest-level viceroys are called governors-general). But if they're all controlled by the same person, isn't that like being one country? Flag of Elizabeth II, Queen of Barbados. See all flags of Elizabeth II . By Barryob ( source ). License: CC BY-SA .

Unlike in medieval personal unions , where a single monarch had power over two or more countries, the queen has next to no power in her modern realms. Although there are some decision-making powers ceremonially assigned to her, for the most part she can now only exercise them if asked to by the country's government. Since modern constitutional monarchies require the royal family to stay out of politics, the queen serves as a symbol of a loyalty to one's nation that transcends political differences. Still, this must create some awkward situations now and then, right? Absolutely - since the queen mainly acts only on the "advice" of her countries' governments, she officially takes both sides whenever two realms disagree, and has also been found engaging in trade competition with herself. She may also be simultaneously neutral and at war when one realm is involved in an international conflict and others are not; in extreme cases, the monarch of the Commonwealth realms may even declare war against him or herself, as happened in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 (during the reign of King George VI).

Who Owns the World » Canada Who Owns the World CANADA This submission was prepared by Kay Cahill FRSA, BSc (Econ) and Jennifer Copley BFA BEd. of the Infodemons Information Consultancy (Canada) and edited by Kevin Cahill Canada is a kingdom, also called a dominion, whose head of state is a Queen, Elizabeth 11. She is also Queen of the United Kingdom and of 32 other countries and territories. Canada was taken from France for the Crown of Great Britain following a battle near Quebec in 1759. The country retains a strong French influence especially in Quebec province, and has two official languages, English and French. Population of Canada. 2005 census, 32.2 million people. The capital of Canada is Ottowa. Population of the capital 1,063,044. Canada is an independent kingdom and a member of the Commonwealth. Canada became a Dominion in 1867 and received a new Constitution in 1982 by way of amendment to the Canada Act of 1867.

Total area of Canada: 2,467 million acres Of this area 2,247 million acres is land and 220 million acres are fresh water. The Europa World Yearbook 2004 describes Canada’s land area as the second largest in the world, after Russia. The ownership factor is 1. The Queen is the sole legal owner of all the land of Canada. The private “holdership” factor, based on freehold tenure of housing is 67%. For all other land it is less than 9.7%, with over 90% of Canadian land remaining as Crown leasehold, administered for the Crown by various agencies and departments of the government of Canada GNI in 2005 was $28,390 and Canada ranked 21 in the World Bank list In the Economist Quality of Life survey Canada scored 7.59 and was ranked 21 out of 111 countries. About 79% of the Canadian population is urban and there is no basic poverty in Canada. There are 75.9 acres per person in Canada.

How Canada is owned All physical land in Canada is the property of the Crown, Queen Elisabeth 11. There is no provision in the Canada Act, or in the Constitution Act 1982 which amends it, for any Canadian to own any physical land in Canada. All that Canadians may hold, in conformity with medieval and feudal law, is “an interest in an estate in land in fee simple”. Land defined as ‘Crown land’ in Canada, and administered by the Federal Government and the Provinces, is merely land not ‘dedicated’ or assigned in freehold tenure. Freehold is tenure, not ownership. Freehold land is ‘held’ not ‘owned’. Canada, a vast territory dominating the north of the North American continent, was colonised by the British from 1497 when Cabot left Bristol and reached New Foundland. Subsequently, most of Canada fell under French control. In 1759, at the result of a single battle at Quebec, Britain took Canada from the French. In 1867 Canada became the first Crown colony to obtain self government within the Empire as a Dominion.

Throughout most of the 19th century, it was the stated policy of the American political parties to annex Canada. They were prevented from doing so only by the threat of British sea power. Canada is now, with Britain, America’s closest ally, despite some differences. The policy of annexing Canada has been shelved because not even America could afford the bill from the Crown, about $16 trillion. Canada is a federation of 13 provinces. Land in Canada Just 9.7% of the land of Canada is privately held. The majority of the land, 90.3%, is Crown Land, otherwise known as Public Land. Of this, 50% is Crown land administered by the Provincial governments and 40.3% is Crown land administered by the federal government. Canada is on of the greatest land resources on the earth, and one of the most beautiful. There is more unused land in Canada than almost anywhere else on the planet. To give an indication of the relative size of Canada’s provinces are here ranked opposite the countries they are closest to in size with their associated populations. Census 2000.

246,338,000 The total acreage here is based on the sum of the Canadian provinces as officially cited in the Canadian Government web site. (2,467,264.640 acres) There is a difference of about 6 million acres between this total and the official size of Canada as cited in the Europa World Yearbook. This is a difference of 0.2% and is accounted for by variations in survey methods. Principal uses of land in Canada: National Parks There are 43 National Parks in Canada, which cover a total of 55,465,548 acres, or 2.2% of the total area of Canada. Agriculture Farms cover a total of 166,798,546 acres in Canada. There are a total of 246,923 farms, with an average size of 674.5 acres. 235,131 farms covering a total of 62,359,984 acres are privately held. The remainder, covering 104,438,561acres, are rented or leased from others.

Private homes There are a total of 11,562,975 dwellings in Canada. Of these, 7,417,525 are held in freehold tenure by the resident homeowner. 64% of Canadians hold their own home. Mining Mining companies operate in all Canadian provinces. The main minerals mined are gold, copper, zinc, lead, coal, oil and natural gas. Most mining land is leased, on Crown leases. Forestry Forest and All Other Wooded Land in Canada Provincial Portion by Province: Unclassified: 19,768 acres total (17,297 acres in Quebec and 2,471 acres in Alberta) 45% (45 percent – 1,031,889,600 acres) of Canada’s land area is forested. 71% of the forested land is held by provincial governments, 23% by federal and territorial governments, and 6% is privately held by approximately 425,000 private owners consisting of individuals, families, communities, and forest companies.

Forest companies often manage forests and engage in logging activities in a partnership with the government, rather than holding forest land in Canada. The government, or the public, actually holds the forest and simply leases it to various companies who do the logging and management in many cases. Forest companies hold just over 1.5% of Canada’s wooded land. Queen Elizabeth Islands Encyclopedia > Places > United States, Canada, and Greenland > Canadian Political Geography Queen Elizabeth Islands Queen Elizabeth Islands, northern part of the Arctic Archipelago, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, N Canada. Ellesmere Island (the largest), the Parry group (Melville, Bathurst, Devon, Prince Patrick, and Cornwallis islands), and the Sverdrup group (Axel Heiberg, Ellef Ringnes, Amund Ringnes, and many smaller islands) are found there. The islands are underlain by oil-bearing rock; extensive drilling has been under way since the early 1960s. The British explorer Sir William Parry explored (1819–20) many of the islands, and they were known (until 1954) as the Parry Islands. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. Who owns the world? 17 March 2011 Who owns the world? The Queen, the family of the actress Nicole Kidman, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the media tyco Sign up for our weekly email * The world relative to its human population is quite large. It is 123 billion acres in size, of which 37 billion acres are land. This means that there are a notional four acres available for every man, woman and child in the predicted 2050 world population 0f nine billion, which would be an increase of two billion on the present population. But notional is not real, and what is noticeable when looking at how the 37 billion acres are used by nature and humanity is that the urban area, humanity's footprint on the land patch, is extremely small, at 1.5 per cent. This conflicts with the common rhetoric of environmentalists, which too often comes fact-free. Land use has historically tended to follow claims to ownership, defined as the right to the use of and disposal of land.

The relationship between humans and land begins with a fundamental claim by some people or countries to "own" land. On that basis, the world divides into two simple categories: those countries that allow citizens to own the land to which they hold legal title and those that grant only tenancies to their citizens, permitting the state to claim a total prior right to the use of all land within its borders. Those countries that allow their people to own the land to which they hold legal title are among the most economically successful - such as the United States, Germany and France. Those operating what is essentially a feudal or pre-feudal system, in which the state or monarch claims legal rights to all land, tend to be less developed, with rare exceptions such as the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The latter category, in which citizens cannot own land legally, is dominated by one of the oddest situations on earth: the legal ownership by a single individual of all land in a number of countries and the consequent downgrading of all citizens of those countries to the status of feudal vassals in relation to land. The world's primary feudal landowner is Queen Elizabeth II.

She is Queen of 32 countries, head of a Commonwealth of 54 countries in which a quarter of the world's population lives, and legal owner of about 6.6 billion acres of land, one-sixth of the earth's land surface. Her position is a relic of the last and largest land empire in history, rumours of whose demise would appear to be somewhat premature based on her position and possessions. But her power is real, or at least legally real, and it derives from a tradition based on a specific and unbalanced relationship between rulers and the ruled. 1066 and all thatFeudalism begins with the idea that all land and people are the possession of the gods, with the gods devolving that ownership to a human representative. The divine origin of land ownership became all-pervasive in classical times and took its most brutal general form in the deified Roman emperors, from whom all land in the empire was held. The Romans brought the idea of imperial ownership to Britain in 43AD. Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the last time Britain was invaded, the idea of a singular, absolute, monarchical owner of land became entrenched in constitution and practice.

With the expansion of the British empire, this version of the feudal system was imposed on about a quarter of the world. Today we have two kinds of feudal state: the inherited state, usually with a monarch at its head, such as the UK; and the state that claims ownership of all land and is feudal in its conception and often totalitarian, such as China. But the core surviving feudal structure in the modern world is inherited, transnational and covers many countries. It has no formal name. It is, in fact, the British crown and its wearer, Elizabeth II. Her legal title runs thus: "by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith". This constitutional statement includes some vast territories where the Queen is quite separately the sovereign head of state and legal owner. First among these is Australia, which, if its Antarctic territories are included, is the second-largest country on earth. And the Queen, in effect, owns it. She also owns the third-largest country, Canada. When the Queen's territories are added together, the Russian Federation ceases to be the largest single political entity on earth.

Like the Queen's realms, the Russian Federation is dramatically underpopulated and immensely rich in mineral wealth of all kinds. Together, the Queen's realms have a depth of international political defence unlike any other alliance. They are combined together in the Commonwealth, the largest single bloc in the United Nations, the largest single combination of nations outside the UN, and they are all headed by the same diminutive octogenarian. If the Queen could convert her landholdings into cash, she would not only be the richest individual on earth, but also the richest person who has ever lived. Another way she could achieve that, however, is by turning upside down the 13 tax havens of which she is both ruler and owner and shaking the cash out of them. A tax haven is, fundamentally, a bandits' lair, as in those old-style Hollywood westerns where the bad guys gather with their stolen loot. Modern tax havens are where the international kleptocracy, often the rulers of states and their families, hide the money they steal while in office and where multinational corporations keep the cash and assets on which they have no wish to pay tax.

Indeed, with its own peculiar rules of domicile, the UK, the Queen's primary realm, is itself a kind of tax haven for many. Of the world's 24 largest tax havens (see the table above right), the Queen is sovereign of no fewer than 13. Their existence is currently dividing the coalition government, with the Liberal Democrats seeking to regulate all of them and the Tories unwilling to terminate the source of so much of their party's donations. The list of the world's largest individual or family landowners (see table above), dominated by the Queen, has some interesting entrants. The largest individual landowner after the Queen is another monarch, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. He holds the land in trust for the people and as a gift from God. This ancient constitutional formulation also applies in Scotland, where the monarch holds the land in trust from her ultimate feudal superior, God. The same religious formula applies to the King of Morocco, Sultan Quaboos of Oman, King Abdullah of Jordan, the Emir of Kuwait and Sheikh Hamad of Qatar. Unlike the Queen, however, the majority of the Islamic custodians of land are personally active in its allocation.

The Queen is wholly remote from land transactions, except in connection with her private estates. In the UK, most of the country has been allocated through freehold transactions, sometimes as far back as the early middle ages. Transactions are mostly between estates, corporations and individuals, and are conducted by lawyers in association with the land registries. In Canada, New Zealand and Australia, government agencies allocate and dispose of land on behalf of the Crown. There is no formal record of any of these countries remitting funds to the UK on behalf of the Queen. The Pope, who is a head of state and a monarch in international law, also acts as God's representative but not in quite the same way as Muslim monarchs. In Catholic dogma, all land does indeed come from God, and for many centuries the Pope had nearly as many acres as Elizabeth II has today - between 20 and 30 per cent of Europe and the same proportion of South America. Most of those lands have been lost, but the Pope is understood to own all the land of the Catholic Church's institutions, religious orders and dioceses as monarch, on much the same basis as the Queen owns her acres.

The estimated total of land held by the Pope is around 177 million acres. At eight on the list of individual and family landowners are the farms and ranches of the Kidmans in Australia, to whom the actress Nicole Kidman is related. Theirs is the largest private, non-monarchical, non-state land­holding on earth. The Kidmans cannot "own" land in Australia; only the Queen does so there. What the Kidmans possess is a mixture of specific Crown leases for fixed periods of time and freehold leases for indefinite periods. The first American on the list, Ted Turner, is at number 24. As Australia demonstrates, a small population can create huge landholdings if there is plenty of available land. Despite its vast size, America has a relatively large population in relation to land availability, especially for agricultural use. Both countries practice free-market capitalism, but the American model is based largely on industry and population, while Australia's is based on a combination of agriculture and mined minerals. Alongside the Kidman holdings, there are no fewer than eight other Australian ranches on the list, the smallest of which, the Colonial Agricultural Company, is over 4.5 million acres in size.

While the Kidman holding is larger than Hungary, larger even than 90 of the world's smaller states, Colonial Agricultural is bigger than the world's smallest 43 countries. These huge holdings, which are are not replicated in either the home of free-market capitalism, the US, or Canada, suggest that economic prosperity at a corporate level is not formally impeded by feudal structures, so long as there is flexibility in their application, matched by entrepreneurial aggression in forcing that flexibility to operate. Homestead bound The relative failure of the US to develop huge agricultural corporations probably had much to do with its populist form of capitalism, combined with the unusually large quantity of land, most of it in potential farming areas held by the federal government. American populism is inherently, if ineffectively, anti-monopoly corporatist, especially over land. The federal government doled out land only under popular pressure (in the Homestead Act of 1862) and generally used a basic unit of 160 acres per homestead. In Australia, there was no such form of popular constraint and no instinct to endow Australians with viable farm units.

However, what it should alert us to - and the place to look is Russia - is the formation of huge land corporations that will interdict any attempt to solve the combined problem of deindustrialisation and population growth through a more effective use and distribution of land. The tables accompanying this article have never been compiled or published before. What they show is a world dominated by ancient structures of land ownership, none of which reflect the modern world, its people or their needs. The primary need for the one-third of the world's population who live in dire poverty and in rural areas is to have enough available land to grow food and survive on, as well as for basic shelter. The rest of us, especially in the industrialised world, need secure shelter in the form of an owned, not rented, home. There is one dominant worldwide trend and that is the movement of people from rural to urban areas, which began in Europe in the 18th century and is being replicated in Africa and Asia today. This is driven overwhelmingly by the need to find work and by the poverty of rural living. However, in less than 50 years, a counter trend will produce a wholly predictable crisis. From the first day of mechanisation and then automation, jobs were eliminated.

Combine mechanisation and automation with computerisation and nearly all manufacturing employment may disappear. A capacity to manufacture almost anything in any quantity, with little or no human intervention or supervision, is almost upon us just as more and more of us are living beyond the age of 70. There is only one escape route from these intersecting trends: we need a new approach to land use and ownership, not just in Britain as discussed in my article last week, but throughout the world. At the same time, we need a new approach to employment and taxation, one that free-market capitalism cannot provide with its reliance on private-sector employment and perpetual consumer growth as the engines of a basic income stream. Socialist governments have attempted to solve the employment problem by expanding the public sector. This has failed, because the tax base shrinks - the number of people and businesses paying tax falls, though the amount of tax charged by the government rises. Some form of world population curb would seem desirable, as David Attenborough argued in his RSA lecture on 10 March. But, historically, it is prosperity that has tended to curb population growth, not legislation or war. The route to prosperity in the past has often lain in land.

Perhaps it will do so again, based on a fairer, more democratic model of ownership and distribution. Kevin Cahill's book "Who Owns the World: the Hidden Facts Behind Landownership" is published by Mainstream. Read "The Great Property Swindle", the first part of the author's exclusive investigation into land ownership for the New Statesman. Who Owns the World » Largest Landowner Who Owns the World Largest Landowner “Queen Elizabeth II the largest landowner on Earth.” Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and of 31 other states and territories, is the legal owner of about 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the earth’s non ocean surface. She is the only person on earth who owns whole countries, and who owns countries that are not her own domestic territory. This land ownership is separate from her role as head of state and is different from other monarchies where no such claim is made – Norway, Belgium, Denmark etc. The value of her land holding. £17,600,000,000,000 (approx). This makes her the richest individual on earth. However, there is no way easily to value her real estate.

There is no current market in the land of entire countries. At a rough estimate of $5,000 an acre, and based on the sale of Alaska to the USA by the Tsar, and of Louisiana to the USA by France, the Queen’s land holding is worth a notional $33,000,000,000,000 (Thirty three trillion dollars or about £17,600,000,000,000). Her holding is based on the laws of the countries she owns and her land title is valid in all the countries she owns. Her main holdings are Canada, the 2nd largest country on earth, with 2,467 million acres, Australia, the 7th largest country on earth with 1,900 million acres, the Papua New Guinea with114 million acres, New Zealand with 66 million acres and the UK with 60 million acres. She is the world’s largest landowner by a significant margin.

The next largest landowner is the Russian state, with an overall ownership of 4,219 million acres, and a direct ownership comparable with the Queen’s land holding of 2,447 million acres. The 3rd largest landowner is the Chinese state, which claims all of Chinese land, about 2,365 million acres. The 4th largest landowner on earth is the Federal Government of the United States, which owns about one third of the land of the USA, 760 million acres. The fifth largest landowner on earth is the King of Saudi Arabia with 553 million acres Largest five personal landowners on Earh Queen Elizabeth II 60 facts about the Queen you didn't know | The Independent 60 facts about the Queen you didn't know As she celebrates six decades as head of state, i uncovers some curious facts about Her Majesty. Monday 6 February 2012 11:57 BST Click to follow 60 facts about the Queen you didn't know 1/7 Since 1952 the Queen has given royal assent to more than 3,500 Acts of Parliament.

AP 2/7 A royal footman who poured whisky into the corgis' water as a party trick was rewarded with a salary cut and a demotion. PA 3/7 When she crossed a corgi with a dachshund to create the dorgi the Queen perhaps unwittingly began the craze for designer cross-breeds. PA 4/7 The Royal Train comes with chefs, lace-trimmed pillows, and a no bumpy track rule during the Queen's 7:30am bath. AFP/Getty Images 5/7 The top video on Her Majesty's official YouTube Channel is a clip of Prince William and Kate leaving Buckingham Palace in an Aston Martin. Getty Her Majesty has endured 36 Royal Variety Performances. Getty 7/7 On a state visit to Australia in 1954, during an argument with Prince Philip, the Queen was filmed "hurling shoes, threats and sporting equipment, and venting the sort of regal fury that, in another age, would have cost someone their head", according to writer Robert Hardman.

"I'm sorry for that little interlude," she later said, "but, as you know, it happens in every marriage." AFP Since 1952 the Queen has given royal assent to more than 3,500 Acts of Parliament. 1 On a state visit to Brazil in 1968, the Queen was given two sloths. The animal gifts she receives tend to be placed in zoos, though a horse donated by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands was housed in the Royal Mews. 2 The Queen costs the public purse £36.2m each year, including £359,000 paid directly by the Government to Prince Philip. 3 Since 1952 the Queen has given royal assent to more than 3,500 Acts of Parliament. 4 Each morning, the Queen's breakfast table is laid out with cornflakes and porridge oats in Tupperware containers, yoghurt and two kinds of marmalade – light and dark. 5 A royal footman who poured whisky into the corgis' water as a party trick was rewarded with a salary cut and a demotion.

6 When she crossed a corgi with a dachshund to create the dorgi the Queen perhaps unwittingly began the craze for designer cross-breeds. 7 The Queen is patron of more than 600 charities and organisations. 8 The Queen is the first monarch to have seen three of her children divorce. 9 Britain's monarchy is the most expensive in Europe, though the Netherlands isn't far behind. Spain's royal family gets a comparatively meagre £7m allowance each year. 10 The Queen is thought to be worth around £300m, making her the 257th richest person in the UK. 11 All 5,300 breeding pairs of mute swan in Britain are officially owned by the Queen. 12 'Fishes Royal' applies to all sturgeon, whales, porpoises and dolphins in the water around the UK. Like swans, they also officially belong to the Queen. 13 The Queen sent her first email in 1976 from an army base. 14 The top video on Her Majesty's official YouTube Channel is a clip of Prince William and Kate leaving Buckingham Palace in an Aston Martin.

15 At an official photocall marking the end of 2009's G20 summit, Her Majesty was offended by Silvio Berlusconi hollering "Mr Obama!" at the US President. Unimpressed, the Queen snapped: "What is it? Why does he have to shout?" 16 The Queen was educated by her governess Marion Crawford, to whom she gave the nickname "Crawfie". 17 Ms Crawford's services were not enough to grant her everlasting favour with the royals, however. In 1950, she published a book titled The Little Princesses, recounting the time she spent with Elizabeth and Margaret. The royals were apparently furious. 18 There have been six Archbishops of Canterbury during the Queen's reign – Geoffrey Fisher, Michael Ramsey, Donald Coggan, Robert Runcie, George Carey and Rowan Williams. There have also been six popes – Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. 19 Should the royal chauffeur take a day off, the Queen is quite capable of driving for herself, having learnt to drive in 1945.

20 The Royal Train comes with chefs, lace-trimmed pillows, and a no bumpy track rule during the Queen's 7:30am bath. 21 According to former Arsenal player Cesc Fabregas, the Queen is a Gunners fan. The first football match the Queen attended was the 1953 FA Cup Final. 22 When Her Majesty visited Centre Court's Royal Box for an Andy Murray match in 2010, it ended a 33-year Wimbledon snub. 23 When former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating dared to put an arm round his royal overlord, the press branded him "the Lizard of Oz". 24 The Queen's vocal range is as yet untested, but a recording of a concert to celebrate her Golden Jubilee titled Party at the Palace sold 100,000 copies in its first week of release, making the Queen the first member of the Royal Family to be awarded a gold disc. 25 Her Majesty has endured 36 Royal Variety Performances.

26 Diageo, the world's biggest distiller, is selling 60 decanters of Scotch whisky for £100,000 apiece for the Diamond Jubilee. 27 According to Margaret Rhodes, the Queen's cousin, HM's alcohol intake never varies. She takes a gin and Dubonnet before lunch, with a slice of lemon and a lot of ice. She will take wine with lunch and a dry Martini and a glass of champagne in the evening. That comes to 6 units per day, which would make Her Majesty a binge drinker by government standards. 28 On a state visit to Australia in 1954, during an argument with Prince Philip, the Queen was filmed "hurling shoes, threats and sporting equipment, and venting the sort of regal fury that, in another age, would have cost someone their head", according to writer Robert Hardman.

"I'm sorry for that little interlude," she later said, "but, as you know, it happens in every marriage." 29 The Queen has been at the saluting base of her troops in every Trooping the Colour ceremony since the start of her reign, with the exception of 1955, when a national rail strike forced the cancellation of the parade. 30 A message of the Queen's congratulations to Apollo 11 astronauts for the first moon landing was microfilmed and deposited in a metal container on the satellite's surface. 31 What gives the Queen the giggles? Ali G impressions, according to Prince William. 32 The Queen is the 40th monarch since William the Conqueror obtained the crown of England. 33 The Queen, the official head of the Church of England, first entered a mosque in July 2002, at Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. 34 During the last 60 years, the Queen has undertaken 261 official overseas visits, including 78 state visits, to 116 different countries.

35 She's also received 102 inward state visits from 1952 to the end of 2011, the last being Turkey in November 2011. 36 The first "royal walkabouts", designed so the Queen could meet the public, took place in Australia and New Zealand in 1970. 37 She has broadcast a Christmas message every year since her coronation in 1952, except in 1969. 38 The Queen was born on 21 April 1926, but her official birthday is celebrated in June. 39 The Royal Collection, a vast hoard of art including 150,000 paintings by the likes of Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian and Raphael, is held in trust by the Queen for the nation. 40 The monarch has answered around three and a half million items of correspondence and more than 175,000 telegrams sent to centenarians in the UK and the Commonwealth. 41 The Queen has sat for 129 portraits during her reign, painted in a variety of styles.

Lucian Freud's 2001 depiction of HM divided critics and was slated by the tabloids. 42 During the past 60 years almost one and a half million people have attended garden parties at Buckingham Palace or the Palace of Holyroodhouse, with 8,000 people head through the gates every year. 43 Owing to the collapse of the Empire the Queen has presided over the loss of sovereignty of more countries than any of her predecessors. 44 Since 1952, the Queen has conferred more than 404,500 honours and awards. 45 The Queen's first portrait was painted in 1933, when she was seven, and the most recent was for Rolf Harris in 2005. 46 During her reign the Queen has visited Canada 22 times, Australia 18 times, New Zealand 10 times and Jamaica six times. 47 The monarch and the Duke of Edinburgh have sent approximately 45,000 Christmas cards. 48 The Queen became the first monarch to open the doors to Buckingham Palace to the public in 1993.

She needed the cash for the repair of Windsor Castle after a fire. 49 The design of the 1st class stamp is to be updated for the Jubilee. The traditional gold will be replaced with a blue colour scheme and the words "Diamond Jubilee" highlighted in iridescent ink. 50 It's been forecast that the four-day holiday for the jubilee will hit the economy with up to a 0.5 per cent reduction in GDP, despite the boost to tourism and retail. 51 The Queen has seen 12 different Prime Ministers during her reign – from Sir Winston Churchill through to the incumbent David Cameron. 52 Apparently, it has always been the Queen's dream to see one of her horses win the Epsom Derby. Aureole came second in 1953, and last year Carlton House managed third. 53 The Queen's racing colours are a purple body with gold braid, scarlet sleeves and black velvet cap with gold fringe. They were adopted from those used by Edward VII; one of his most successful horses was called Diamond Jubilee. 54 The Queen and duke have been married for a whopping 64 years.

55 Queen Victoria was the last, and previously the only, British monarch to celebrate a diamond jubilee. 56 The Queen has bought a lot of Christening gifts thanks to her huge list of 30 godchildren. 57 The only time the sovereign has had to interrupt an overseas tour was in 1974 during a visit to Australia and Indonesia when she was called back to the UK when a snap general election was called. 58 The Queen's official visits have ranged from the Cocos Islands, 5.4 square miles with a population of 596 to China, 3.7 million square miles with a population of 1.34 billion. 59 In May 2011, the Queen became the first British monarch to visit the Republic of Ireland since Irish independence. 60 The Queen has laid her wreath at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday every year of her reign, except in 1959, 1961, 1963, 1968, 1983 and 1999 when she was either pregnant or overseas on official visits. More about: Token Royalty?

Queen Elizabeth II the largest landowner on Earth » Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind! Token Royalty? Queen Elizabeth II the largest landowner on Earth July 7, 2009 Comments Who Owns the World July 7, 2009 Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and of 31 other states and territories, is the legal owner of about 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the earth’s non ocean surface. She is the only person on earth who owns whole countries, and who owns countries that are not her own domestic territory. This land ownership is separate from her role as head of state and is different from other monarchies where no such claim is made – Norway, Belgium, Denmark etc. [efoods]The value of her land holding. £17,600,000,000,000 (approx). This makes her the richest individual on earth. However, there is no way easily to value her real estate. There is no current market in the land of entire countries.

At a rough estimate of $5,000 an acre, and based on the sale of Alaska to the USA by the Tsar, and of Louisiana to the USA by France, the Queen’s land holding is worth a notional $33,000,000,000,000 (Thirty three trillion dollars or about £17,600,000,000,000). Her holding is based on the laws of the countries she owns and her land title is valid in all the countries she owns. Her main holdings are Canada, the 2nd largest country on earth, with 2,467 million acres, Australia, the 7th largest country on earth with 1,900 million acres, the Papua New Guinea with114 million acres, New Zealand with 66 million acres and the UK with 60 million acres. She is the world’s largest landowner by a significant margin. The next largest landowner is the Russian state, with an overall ownership of 4,219 million acres, and a direct ownership comparable with the Queen’s land holding of 2,447 million acres.

The 3rd largest landowner is the Chinese state, which claims all of Chinese land, about 2,365 million acres. The 4th largest landowner on earth is the Federal Government of the United States, which owns about one third of the land of the USA, 760 million acres. The fifth largest landowner on earth is the King of Saudi Arabia with 553 million acres Largest five personal landowners on Earth: Queen Elizabeth II 6,600 million acres King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia 553 million acres King Bhumibol of Thailand 126 million acres King Mohammed IV of Morocco 113 million acres Sultan Quaboos of Oman 76 million acres

Question: Which country owns the Queen Elizabeth islands?
Answer: Canada