What if the Commonwealth of Nations United Today?

The Commonwealth of Nations - formerly known as the British Commonwealth - is today, in the 21st century hello people from the future, a major association of many different former British Colonies that are all friendly towards each other and co-operatively work together. Due to their extreme differences and complete opposite locations in the world, almost nobody has proposed an idea for the unification of the whole Commonwealth. However, the idea is still not 100% impossible. So what if  the organisation did unite today?

The first thing we would need to think about the Commonwealth, if it united, would be its land area, population and cities.

In total, a huge 54 countries, just over 1/4 of all the countries in the world, would make up the union of course, I won't name them for obvious reasons. With this many countries making it up, the Commonwealth would be present in every single corner and continent in the world: just one would be located in South America, 2 in Europe, 9 in Asia, 11 in Oceania, 13 in North America, and 19 in Africa. (Note: This does not include the two former members of Zimbabwe and Ireland).

Another result of so many countries making the United Commonwealth up, its land area would also be huge. Standing at almost a massive 30 Million Sq Km (11.566 Million Sq mi), this would easily make the union, by far the largest country in the world, even making Russia (17.098 Million Sq km) look puny in comparison. Not only this, but to really show how large the Commonwealth would be, it would still be significantly larger than China, the United States and Brazil, combined.

The population of the Commonwealth would also be mind-boggling, like its land area, at roughly 2.55 Billion, with a population density of 85/km² . Obviously, this would easily make it the most populous country in the world, even almost double the population of China (1.449 Billion) and over 7.5x the population of the United States (331 Million). However, the population would be far from being evenly distributed across the Union as huge parts like Canada would only have a population of just 37 Million, while significantly smaller parts such as India would account for over 50% of its whole population.

If we had to decide on a capital city for the gargantuan country, London would probably be the most likely option as it would debatably be the most important city in the Commonwealth and, furthermore, is also where the current organisation's headquarters is located. Despite being the capital, London would not be the biggest city, only being the 7th largest. Instead, Delhi would be the biggest, with a huge 31.3 Million people, being far larger than London's 14.8 Million. Here would be the rest of the top 10 biggest urban areas in the Commonwealth of Nations:

The next thing we come to is the Commonwealth's economy, which would also be very impressive. Beginning with one of the most important parts of its economy, the Nominal GDP of the union would be very large, standing at a whopping $10.923 Trillion. This would be enough to rank it 3rd place, steaming ahead of many other big and well-known economies such as Japan ($5.383 Trillion) and Germany ($4.557 Trillion), but just remaining behind China ($18.463 Trillion) and the US ($24.516 Trillion).

Despite having some parts of the Union with quite high average yearly wages, the Commonwealth, collectively, wouldn't have a that impressive GDP Per Capita, mainly due to some quite poor areas, such as Cameroon, Uganda and a few others. When taking this into consideration, this amount would stand at $3,532, enough to have the 148th highest average yearly salaries in the world, ahead of the Philippines ($3,492) and Morocco ($3,471), but behind Tunisia ($3,556) and Algeria ($3,638).

Oil would also be very prevalent within the Commonwealth, as many hugely oil-producing countries such as Canada and Nigeria, which are both home to some of the world's largest oil reserves. With all of this under the control of the union, it would definitely be a major oil producer, allowing it to boost its recognition on the World Stage.

A united Commonwealth of Nations would be incredibly diverse, with many different religious and ethnic groups of hundreds of cultures, which is what we come to talk about now.

Starting with the first, believe it or not, Hinduism would actually be - by far - the most followed religion in the union with a very significant 47% adhering to the faith. Following behind at 27%, Islam would be the second largest religion in the Commonwealth, split between 22% Sunni and 5% Shia. Surprisingly, Christianity would fall behind to being only the 3rd largest religion in the country, accounting for only about 13%. Other small religions would also have a small following in the union, such as Buddhism at 1.1% and Sikhism at 0.9%. The final 10% would be a mix of various other small religions and Atheists and other irreligious people.

Coming to its Ethnic Groups now, Indo-Aryan ethnicities would collectively make up almost half of the population, at 49%. Next, various ethnic groups native to Africa, like Sukuma, Igbo and Kikuyu, would be collectively 22% of the population. Dravidians, another ethnicity in the Indian Subcontinent, would represent a further 13%. People that identify themselves as exclusively white would make up a small 5%, followed by people that identify as exclusively Black at 3.2%. Finally, the remaining 7.8% of the population would be a mix of various other small ethnic groups prevalent in the union's borders.

As well as its Religious and Ethnic Groups, the languages of the Commonwealth would also be very diverse. Hindi, being the most spoken language in the union, would only account for about 27% of the population, really showing how Linguistically diverse the country would be. Bengali, another language native to the Indian Subcontinent, would be next at 12%. English, despite being the most important language in the country, would fall behind to only 10% of the population. However, if we were to include the people speaking this as a second language, English would by far be the most spoken language in the union, with over 1.3 Billion speakers in total. Various small African languages, such as Igbo and Hausa would collectively make up about 10%. This would be followed by Swahili at 9% and Punjabi at 7.3%, Marathi and Telugu at about a further 4% each, while Tamil would be make up 2.9%. The final 13.8% of the population would be a mix of various other tiny languages with very little speakers in the Commonwealth.

The final topic we would need to look at about a united Commonwealth, is its Military Strength.

Beginning with manpower, the union would in total have a gargantuan 3,370,100 active-duty personnel. This would by far be the largest force in the world, even dwarfing China's amount (2,185,000 troops) and being almost double the army size of the United States (1,388,100 troops). In addition to this huge amount, the Commonwealth would also have an extra 1,924,800 troops, bringing its army size when fully mobilised to a total of 5,294,900 troops.

The country's budget to fund this enormous military would also be quite large, at around $186 Billion, which would be the 3rd highest budget in the world, only just behind the juggernauts of China ($261 Billion) and the US ($732 Billion).

Another major advantage for the military of the Commonwealth would be the fact that it would be in possession of Nuclear Weapons, inheriting all of the UK, India and Pakistan's nukes, bringing its stockpile to a total of around 550 Nukes.