The
sterling area (or
sterling bloc, legally
scheduled territories) was a group of countries that either pegged their currencies to the
pound sterling, or actually used the pound as their own currency. The area began to appear informally during the early 1930s, after the pound had left the
gold standard in 1931, with the result that a number of
currencies of countries that historically had performed a large amount of their trade in sterling were
pegged to sterling instead of to gold. A large number of these countries were members of the
British Empire and
Commonwealth; however, a significant minority were not.