It also has British Empire as #1, but this includes India. On its own Britain was much smaller.
When you seperate "overseas territories" out, then you are still left with Asia (incl India) as #1
Where did industrial revolution start? In Britain or in India?
On this page you can go back to 1700 and see that Europe was way down the list: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006557/global-populatio...
So your own method of arguing leads to the opposite result than your conclusion.
It also has British Empire as #1, but this includes India. On its own Britain was much smaller.
When you seperate "overseas territories" out, then you are still left with Asia (incl India) as #1
Where did industrial revolution start? In Britain or in India?
On this page you can go back to 1700 and see that Europe was way down the list: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006557/global-populatio...
So your own method of arguing leads to the opposite result than your conclusion.