The 100 Founding Cities
Listed alphabetically within each continent — the Cities of the Sovereign Shield. These Cities form the civic architecture of Give 100. The register names the first places where the Sovereign Shield is to be carried locally: where Opening Semidons are to be convened on the International Day of Peace, 21 September 2026; where further Semidons may seed support across the observance year; and where local Chapters, City Centorys, LAMPs, Champions, Beacons, and civic hosts may take durable form. A Semidon is a cause-seeding gathering—convened to awaken, organise, or multiply support for a worthy cause. Give 100 begins its countdown on 21 April 2026, formally opens on 21 September 2026, and culminates on 21 September 2027.
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 civilisational memory of the Queen’s reign extends beyond the Commonwealth’s present membership.
The Witness Cities stand beside the Founding Register and do not alter the number of Founding Cities. They are not Commonwealth Cities; they witness in recognition of a shared civilisational inheritance that the observance honours.
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. Among many Hong Kongers, affection for the Queen endured beyond the handover, making the city one of the clearest witnesses to the Commonwealth’s emotional and civic afterlife.
Williamsburg USA Witness IV
The American founding emerged from the same British constitutional inheritance that later shaped much of the Commonwealth—an 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.
From the Opening Semidons of 21 September 2026 to the final Semidon of 21 September 2027, each City is called to carry the Sovereign Shield into lasting local structure—and toward the founding of the Institute of Preemptology.
Enter the Observance