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Empire of Cygnia
Flag of the United Kingdom
1793–1948 Eureka Flag
Eureka Flag Coat of arms of Cygnia
Flag Coat of arms
Motto
Suscipire et Finire (Latin)
Support and Finish
Anthem
The Song of Cygnia

Royal Anthem
God Save the King

Cygnia colonial map
Maximum extent of Cygnia and her colonies, superimposed over modern international borders, 1941
  Dominions
  Indian Empire
  Territories
Capital Perth (de facto until 1800)
Northam, TS
Languages English, Dutch
Government Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Monarch
 -  1792 – 1815 (first) George I
 -  1936 – 1948 (last) George IV
Chancellor
 -  1792 – 1805 (first) Sir Frederick Northam
 -  1946 – 1948 (last) Ben Chifley
Legislature Imperial Congress
 -  Upper house House of Lords
 -  Lower house House of Representatives
History
 -  Declaration of Independence 3 April 1784
 -  Constitution 3 April 1793
 -  Union 13 February 1948
Currency Cygnian Pound
Today part of Eureka Flag Cygnia

The Empire of Cygnia, commonly known at the time as Cygnia but today referred to using its full name or as the Empire to differentiate it from the modern United Cygnian States, was a sovereign state that occupied the Australian continent. The Empire was established by former King George III of the United Kingdom in 1792 following the federation of the Cygnian colonies nine years earlier. The new nation went on to create a colonial empire of its own — one of the largest in history — with possessions on four different continents.

The oldest of the Cygnian colonies, New Zealand, was founded by the Dutch as New Zeeland in 1614. The other five colonies were founded by the British after 1660. New Zeeland was acquired by Britain, along with several of the Netherlands' other colonial possessions, after the Anglo-Dutch War.

The colonies that formed the Empire federated in 1784 as the Kingdom of Cygnia, and Perth became the seat of King George III's government-in-exile after the French Revolution overthrew him and established the French First Republic. France fought Cygnia in the Cygnian War of Independence beginning in April 1784, but in 1792, the war ended with a Cygnian victory, and Cygnian independence was secured. On 5 May 1792, King George III was crowned King George I of Cygnia, establishing the Empire. A constitution was drafted and enacted one year after his coronation on 5 May 1793.

Following independence, Cygnia went through periods of prosperity and decline, and it continued to expand the empire it had inherited from the United Kingdom. One of the most notable periods of economic boom for Cygnia began in the early 1840s, when prospectors in multiple locations discovered gold, including at Halls Creek and Kalgoorlie, both of which became huge settlements. Immigration increased dramatically, and the population skyrocketed. In response, infrastructure was also expanded, and the Goldfields Irrigation Pipelines initiative was one of the biggest engineering projects of the mid-19th century. Industrialisation followed swiftly after, and Cygnia became a centre of technological progress.

Careful fiscal conservatism following the end of the Second World War by the newly elected Unionist government pushed Cygnia into another economic boom in the 1920s, and in 1924 the treasury saw a surplus for the first time in over forty years. This resulted in the chartering and establishment of new government-owned corporations such as Imperial Cygnian Airways and Cygnia Rail.

In World War III, Japan attacked many of Cygnia's overseas territories, threatening Cygnian dominance in the Pacific for the first time in 300 years. After the end of the war, economic crisis and a wave of nationalism spreading through Cygnia's colonies drove the country to reconstitute itself as the United Cygnian States, with a new constitution promulgated in 1948 and enacted in 1949. The name change was made to "stress the importance of the democratic and federal unity of Cygnia and her peoples". This new constitution introduced stronger democratic systems, including the Senate to replace the House of Councillors. Over the course of the next fifty years, the Cygnian colonial empire disintegrated, beginning with the independence of India in 1950 and culminating in the ending of the Californian monarchy in 2000. On the other hand, some of these colonies elected to remain within the new Union, including Fiji, Papua, New Hebrides, New Guinea, New Caledonia and several other territories; most have since become States. Today, Cygnia is an equal member of the Commonwealth of Nations alongside many of its former colonial possessions, which are now independent republics.

Administrative divisions

Below is a list of all major administrative divisions of the Empire at its height in 1941.

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