BRITISH INDIA MAP

BRITISH INDIA MAP

This early-20th century map shows the British Empire in India, a complex political structure that was made up of provinces directly ruled by Britain and the Native--or Princely--States, which were ruled indirectly through Indian sovereigns subject to British suzerainty. Also shown on the map are the French and Portuguese enclaves, the independent states of Nepal and Bhutan, and the island of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), which was under British rule but not part of the Indian Empire. India became independent in 1947, but was partitioned into the states of India and Pakistan. The latter in turn split, in 1971, into Pakistan and Bangladesh. The publisher of the map, Dodd, Mead, and Company, was founded in New York in 1839 by Moses Woodruff Dodd and John S. Taylor, and was originally a publisher of religious books. In 1870, when Dodd's nephew Edward S. Mead took over the firm, it became Dodd and Mead, and later Dodd, Mead, and Company. One of its best known publications was the 20-volume New International Encyclopedia (1903-04), in which this map also appeared.