alternatehistory.com

For much of human history, Britain was largely a backwater. But from the fall of the Roman Empire onwards, Britain steadily became more and more powerful.

By the time of the Age of Exploration, Britain was expanding everywhere and would soon become world hegemon. By 1920, it controlled 25% of the world's land and people.

Many people consider it a fluke but my opinion is that Britain's geography made the possibility of British hegemony fairly high.

Due to favorable geography, Europe as a whole was almost always going to establish hegemony over the Americas, Asia and Africa. It's temperate climate, being literally at the center of all land masses, lots of peninsulas for development of independent competing seafaring nations, etc meant European supremacy was inevitable.

But diving down further, the three parts of Europe most likely to develop world hegemony is:
Britain 40%
Iberia 35%
France 15%
Other parts of Europe 10%

Britain has a higher chance than others because of its island geography. This is conducive to developing a single united country in England that is protected from invasion. Also this means it will develop the world's strongest naval forces which leads to world dominance.

Iberia is just right behind for similar reasons. France is further behind as it is more likely to be entangled on the continent. Other parts of Europe have an even smaller chance for that reason.

The point is that Britain building the world's biggest empire was no fluke. If you start with a prehistoric PoD, something resembling the British Empire has a likelihood of around 25% of happening. (And similarly a world hegemon based in Iberia is right behind.)
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