The European diaspora consists of European people and their descendants who emigrated from Europe. Emigration from Europe began on a large scale during the European colonial empires of the 18th to 19th centuries. This concerns especially the Spanish Empire in the 16th to 17th centuries (expansion of the Hispanosphere), the British Empire in the 17th to 19th centuries (expansion of the Anglosphere), the Portuguese Empire and the Russian Empire in the 19th century (expansion to Central Asia and the Russian Far East).