涨知识：英联邦到底是个什么组织

Commonwealth leaders are meeting in London. Here are seven things about this club of nations that you might not know.

英联邦领导人正在伦敦开会。以下是关于你可能不知道的关于这个国家具乐部的七件事情。

1- It’s home to almost one-third of the world’s population

1-它拥有近三分之一的世界人口

About 2.4 billion people - out of 7.4 billion globally - live in the Commonwealth’s 53 countries. And most of them are under the age of 30.

全球约74亿人中，约有24亿人生活在英联邦的53个国家。他们中的大多数都在30岁以下。

2 - Some members were never part of the British Empire

2-有些成员从来不是大英帝国的一部分

Rwanda and Mozambique became members in 2009 and 1995 respectively, and neither has a British colonial past or constitutional link.

卢旺达和莫桑比克分别在2009年和1995年成为成员，既没有英国的殖民地历史也没有宪法联系。

3 - The Queen is head of state in only 16 of the countries

3-女王是仅仅16个国家的国家元首

Most of the Commonwealth states are republics and six - Lesotho, Swaziland, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Samoa and Tonga - have their own monarch.

大多数英联邦国家是共和国，六个国家，包括莱索托，斯威士兰，文莱达鲁萨兰国，马来西亚，萨摩亚和汤加，都有自己的君主。

4- It’s rather big

4-它相当大

The Commonwealth makes up a quarter of the world’s land mass.

英联邦占世界土地面积的四分之一。

The giant of the group is Canada, the world’s second largest country. India and Australia are huge too. But many of the states are small - like the Pacific island nations of Nauru, Samoa, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, and Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean.

该集团的巨人是加拿大，世界第二大国。印度和澳大利亚也是巨大的。但许多国家都很小——例如太平洋岛国瑙鲁，萨摩亚，图瓦卢和瓦努阿图，多米尼加和加勒比地区的安提瓜和巴布达。

5- It changed its name

5-它改了名字

The modern Commonwealth was formed in 1949, after "British" was dropped from the name and allegiance to the Crown was removed from its statute. Only two people have been head of the organisation - King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. But it’s not a hereditary role, although the Prince of Wales is widely expected to take it up when he becomes king.

当“英国的”从该名字中被删除并且对王室的效忠被从其法规中删除之后，现代英联邦于1949年成立。只有两个人是该组织的负责人 - 乔治六世国王和伊丽莎白女王二世。但这不是一个世袭的角色，虽然普遍猜测认为，当威尔斯王子成为国王后，他会接管负责人角色。

6- The UK still has the biggest Commonwealth economy… just

6 -英国仍然是英联邦的最大经济体......只不过

India could claim number one spot soon - possibly as early as this year.

印度可能很快就会获得第一名——最早可能今年。

The combined GDP of the 53 countries is USD 10tn. That’s nearly as big as China’s (USD 11tn) but some way behind that of the United States, on USD 19tn .

这53个国家的国内生产总值是10万亿美元。这与中国（11万亿美元）差不多，但远低于美国的19万亿美元。

7- There’s more than one commonwealth

7-世界上有不止一个联邦

Don’t forget the International Organisation of La Francophonie - a group of French-speaking countries. And there’s the Commonwealth of Independent States, which was set up in 1991 by former members of the Soviet Union.

不要忘记法语国家组织La Francophonie - 一个说法语的国家组合。独立国家联邦也存在，这是由前苏联成员于1991年成立的。