Britain banished many of its convicts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Britain banished convicts to its American colonies prior to the American Revolution in 1776. Beginning in 1787, Britain banished convicts to its Australian colonies.

The British referred to banishment as transportation. The term transportation emphasizes the state action of conveying convicts across the seas to distant colonies. Banishment is a term more centrally related to the experience of the subjects of the punishment. Banishment is a type of punishment with a historical record stretching across many societies and back thousands of years. Banishment is a more general description of the British practice of transportation.