The Commonwealth

The British Commonwealth, or, correctly known as The Commonwealth of Nations,  is an intergovernmental organisation of 53 member states that were mostly territories of the former British Empire.
The total population of all the 53 countries of the Commonwealth is about 2.245 billion. This is almost a third of the population of the whole world. The four largest Commonwealth nations by population are India at 1.2 billion, Pakistan at 160 million, Bangladesh at 140 million, and Nigeria at 137 million.
These 53 countries cover an area of 12.1 million square miles. This is about 21 % of the total land area of the world. The largest member country by land area is Canada, at nearly 10 million square kilometres.

My first thought on reading these statistics is why on earth we don't make a bigger thing of this fantastic historic community of nations.

Many countries of the Commonwealth are now Independent.  The Countries are listed here with their dates of Independence and whether they are a Realm (the Queen is head of State) or a Monarchy (they have their own monarch as head of state) or a Republic (I imagine this is where they have no monarch at all as head of state but an elected official perhaps) : Click here to link to official website of the British Monarchy

Yet there is still a relationship between these countries...how much though ? :

• Are there good trade links ? The Commonwealth does not have a common market, but research by the Royal Commonwealth Society has shown that trade is up to 50% greater with commonwealth members than with non-members on average (but is this research for UK trading out to the Commonwealth ? Will need to clarify)
• Can populations move between the countries more easily than elsewhere ?  

Or does the UK now have more of a relationship with Europe and the EU (or even with America).

The Commonwealth Games are to take place this summer in Glasgow and lets hope that Glasgow can be a welcoming place to visitors coming from all over the world.