Installations beyond the mainland
Military installations outside the mainland territory. Two natures sit side by side: footholds abroad, which are power projection, and overseas holdings, which are national territory.
Compiled from open sources. The ranking counts only installations abroad: adding the overseas holdings would move the United Kingdom up four places without it having projected anything. Sovereign holdings are drawn on the map and counted separately.
A base is not a facility. A base is a permanent holding under the operator's control; a facility is a negotiated access right on infrastructure that remains sovereign — the whole difference between Djibouti and Gwadar.
Diego Garcia sums the subject up: British soil, American base, Chagossian population deported in the 1970s; the 2025 treaty cedes sovereignty to Mauritius but has not entered into force. For a long time China had only one openly military base abroad, at Djibouti, a few kilometres from the American one.