British conquest of India

Company rule in India
Joint-stock colony established by the East India Company and regulated by the British Parliament.
1757–1858
Flag Coat of arms
Motto Auspicio Regis et Senatus Angliae "By command of the King and Parliament of England"
Capital		Calcutta (1757–1858)
Languages		English, and others
Government
Governor-General
•	1774–75	Warren Hastings (first)
•	1857–58	Charles Canning (last)
History
•	Battle of Plassey	23 June 1757
•	Treaty of Allahabad	16 August 1765
•	Treaty of Seringapatam	18 March 1792
•	Treaty of Bassein	31 December 1802
•	Treaty of Yandabo	24 February 1826
•	Treaty of Lahore	9 March 1846
•	Government of India Act	2 August 1858
Area
•	1858	1,942,481 km² (749,996 sq mi)
Currency		Rupee
Preceded by Succeeded by Maratha Empire Mughal Empire Kingdom of Mysore Sikh Empire British Raj Straits Settlements
Today part of		Bahrain  Bangladesh  China  Christmas Island  Cocos (Keeling) Islands  India  Malaysia  Myanmar  Oman  Pakistan  Qatar  Saudi Arabia (nominal)  Singapore  Somalia  Sri Lanka  United Arab Emirates  Kuwait  Yemen

Colonial India

Imperial entities of India
Dutch India	1605–1825
Danish India	1620–1869
French India	1769–1954
Portuguese India (1505–1961)
Casa da Índia	1434–1833
Portuguese East India Company	1628–1633
British India (1612–1947)
East India Company	1612–1757
Company rule in India	1757–1858
British Raj	1858–1947
British rule in Burma	1824–1948
Princely states	1721–1949
Partition of India	1947

Company rule in India (sometimes, Company Raj, "raj," lit. "rule" in Hindi) refers to the rule or dominion of the British East India Company over parts of the Indian subcontinent. This is variously taken to have commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab of Bengal Sirajuddaulah surrendered his dominions to the Company, in 1765, when the Company was granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar, or in 1773, when the Company established a capital in Calcutta, appointed its first Governor-General, Warren Hastings, and became directly involved in governance. The Company's rule lasted until 1858, when, after the Indian rebellion of 1857, it was abolished. With the Government of India Act 1858, the British government assumed the task of directly administering India in the new British Raj.

The English East India Company ("the Company") was founded in 1600, as The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies. It gained a foothold in India with the establishment of a factory in Masulipatnam on the Eastern coast of India in 1611 and the grant of the rights to establish a factory in Surat in 1612 by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. In 1640, after receiving similar permission from the Vijayanagara ruler farther south, a second factory was established in Madras on the southeastern coast. Bombay island, not far from Surat, a former Portuguese outpost gifted to England as dowry in the marriage of Catherine of Braganza to Charles II, was leased by the Company in 1668. Two decades later, the Company established a presence on the eastern coast as well; far up that coast, in the Ganges river delta, a factory was set up in Calcutta. Since, during this time other companies—established by the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Danish—were similarly expanding in the region, the English Company's unremarkable beginnings on coastal India offered no clues to what would become a lengthy presence on the Indian subcontinent.