British Commonwealth of Nations

Rare separately issued pictorial map of the world, published at the end of World War II by the British Information Services, but issued from their office at 30 Rockefeller Center, New York City. The British Information Services (BIS) was the New York based information department of the British Consulate in New York, an overseas post of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London. There were also offices of the BIS in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and in Ottawa.

At the top of the map, an inset provides a key to the types of government in each country, including "Mandated Territories", which were administered under the Mandate of the League of Nations, which was disbanded in 1946. A series of vignettes along the bottom edge of the map illustrate the resources, agriculture and manufacturing specialties of countries throughout the British Commonwealth.

The British Commonwealth of Nations (1931-1949), now “the Commonwealth of Nations”, or just “the Commonwealth”, is a free association of sovereign states comprising the United Kingdom and a number of its former dependencies who have chosen to maintain ties of friendship and practical cooperation and who acknowledge the British monarch as symbolic head of their association. In this map, India is still called “British India”, governed by a Viceroy, and Burma, which became independent in 1948, is described as experiencing a period of “reconstruction”, overseen by a Governor, following their occupation during the War by the Japanese. Burma did not join the Commonwealth on becoming independent