The British Raj (literally, "rule" in Sanskrit and Hindustani) was the rule by the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent from 1858 to 1947. The region under British control included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British tutelage or paramountcy, called the princely states.

This system of governance was instituted ih 1858, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. It lasted until 1947, when it was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Dominion of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the eastern part of which, still later, became the People's Republic of Bangladesh in 1971).