The Founding Roll
Listed alphabetically within each continent — the cities of the founding observance.
I
Africa
28 Cities
II
America (North)
17 Cities
III
America (South)
1 City
IV
Asia
19 Cities
V
Europe
17 Cities
VI
Oceania
18 Cities
The Witness Cities
Five cities beyond the Commonwealth’s formal borders are invited as Witness Cities—acknowledgements that Commonwealth history reaches beyond its present map, and that the Queen whose centenary this marks held each of these cities, and their people, close.
The Witness Cities stand beside the Founding Register—they do not alter the number of Founding Cities.
Dublin Ireland Witness I
Dublin shares with the Commonwealth a civilisational story—a literary tradition, a history of civic struggle, and a hard-won idea of self-determination—that borders cannot contain. Its witness honours that shared inheritance.
Harare Zimbabwe Witness II
Zimbabwe represents one of the Commonwealth’s most debated chapters and its clearest lessons about the relationship between health, governance, and human dignity. Harare witnesses in honour of the people who have carried that lesson forward.
Hong Kong China Witness III
No city has embodied the Commonwealth’s defining tension—between rootedness and openness, belonging and becoming—more acutely. The affection was mutual: Hong Kongers loved the Queen with a devotion that outlasted the handover and has not dimmed.
Williamsburg USA Witness IV
The American founding was a Commonwealth argument—about representation, liberty, and the obligations of governance. Williamsburg witnesses as the place where that argument first reached resolution, pioneering experiments in representative government that preceded similar institutions across much of the Commonwealth.
Yangon Myanmar Former Rangoon, Burma Witness V
Myanmar’s people have demonstrated, across generations, an extraordinary capacity for dignity under pressure. Yangon witnesses in recognition of that resilience—and of the conviction that the work of prevention belongs to every people, regardless of the political moment they are living through.