Commonwealth Realm

Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state within the Commonwealth of Nations that currently has Elizabeth II as its reigning constitutional monarch and shares a common royal line of succession with the other realms. As of 2012, there are sixteen Commonwealth realms, with a combined land area (excluding Antarctic claims) of 18.8 million km² (7.3 million mi²) and a population of 137 million, of which all but about two million live in the six most populous states: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Jamaica.

Except for the United Kingdom itself and Papua New Guinea (which, before independence, had been administered as two separate territories by Australia), the Commonwealth realms are former British colonies. The Statute of Westminster created the first Commonwealth realms in 1931 by granting full, or nearly full, legislative independence to several colonies which had already become autonomous Dominions in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. Each later Commonwealth realm was created by a direct grant of independence.

For a time, the term Dominion was retained to refer to non-British Commonwealth realms, even though their actual status had changed. The word is still sometimes used today, though increasingly rarely, as the term realm was formally introduced with Britain's proclamation of Elizabeth II as queen in 1952 and acquired legal status with the adoption of the modern royal styles and titles by the individual countries. The phrase Commonwealth realm, however, is only an informal description; it is not an official term.