What is the definition of a british colony? How does a country no longer remain

Question:

What is the definition of a british colony? How does a country no longer remain a british colony?

What is the significance of being a british colony. Hong kong was a british colony until 1997, did that mean the people had british passports?
Are NZ and Australia british colonies? Was USA ever a british colony? what about Canada?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: A Colony is an abused term. The British Actors who lived in Hollywood/Southern California during the 20's, 30's, 40's on were dubbed The British Colony. A true Colony is any land granted to a group applying for permission of the Monarch to colonize a particular region. There are various ways one can cease to be a colony. Americans rebelled, throwing off ancient covenents and creating a new nation. Others such as Canada and Australia morphed into Dominions. And many in recent times have simply requested to be released from Colonial Status and have converted to a new status in the case of Hong Kong becoming an Automonous Province of China.

Only Parts of the US of A were a British Colony -- --and there were several colonies each with a different government, etc.

Wikipedia says it best..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/crown_colon...
"""The original English colonies in the New World were colonies in the classical sense, in that they were plantations of English subjects in lands hitherto outside the dominions of the Crown. The first such plantation was in Newfoundland, where British fishermen routinely set up seasonal camps in the 16th century.

What later became known as the "Old Empire" began with the first successful permanent colony in "Virginia" (a term that was then applied generally to North America). In 1609, a second colony was established in Bermuda (as an extension of Virginia), which, with the loss of the American colonies in 1783, is the oldest British colony in existence.

The growth of the British Empire in the 19th century, to its peak in the 1920s, saw the UK acquire over one quarter of the world's land mass, including territories with large indigenous populations in Asia and Africa, which were held for commercial and strategic reasons rather than for settlement. The late 19th century saw the larger settler colonies — in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa — becoming self-governing colonies and achieving independence in all matters except foreign policy, defence and trade. Separate self-governing colonies federated to become Canada (in 1867) and the Commonwealth of Australia (in 1901). These and other large self-governing colonies had become known as Dominions by the 1920s. The Dominions achieved full independence with the Statute of Westminster (1931). The Empire was renamed the British Commonwealth to reflect such changes and in 1949 became known as the Commonwealth of Nations. Most of the British colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean achieved independence. Some colonies became Commonwealth Realms, retaining the British monarch as head of state, others became republics but acknowledged Queen Elizabeth II as Head of the Commonwealth.

St. George's town, in the Islands of Bermuda, or The Somers Isles. The colony was founded by the wrecking of the flagship of the Virginia Company in 1609. The Company's charter was extended to include Bermuda in 1612, and it has remained an English (since 1707, British) colony ever since. Since the independence of Virginia, it has been the oldest-remaining British colony, and the town of St. George's is the oldest continuously-inhabited English settlement in the New World.The 1980s saw the United Kingdom lose its last mainland colonies, with the independence of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in Africa in 1980 and British Honduras (now Belize) in Central America in 1981. The last major colony that remained was Hong Kong, with a population of over 5 million. Unlike other territories, the bulk of Hong Kong was leased to the UK by China under a 99 year lease that expired in 1997. The United Kingdom negotiated the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which led to the whole of Hong Kong becoming a "special administrative region" of China in 1997, subject to various conditions intended to guarantee the preservation of Hong Kong's capitalist economy and its way of life under British rule.

Following the return of Hong Kong, the remaining colonial possessions are generally small island territories with small populations, and the uninhabited British Antarctic Territory. The reasons for these territories not achieving independence vary from:"""

Peace