Originally founded in Edinburgh, Scotland and historically British, the company is now based in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States.

The company was founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 18th century, during the historical period termed the Scottish Enlightenment.

[2] When Constable died in 1827, A & C Black Ltd. bought the copyrights to the encyclopædia at auction, and they published it for the next 70 years.

[2] Beginning with the ninth edition in 1875, the range of topics were expanded by bringing in contributors from the literary field, social sciences and the scientific community.

In 1923, they sold the company back to the widow of Hooper (who had died in 1922) and her brother William Cox.

After Cox failed to raise the money needed to publish the fourteenth edition, Sears ended up financing it, and resumed ownership of Britannica in 1928.

The newly titled Britannica 3 was composed of a ten-volume Micropædia, a 19-volume Macropædia and a one-volume guide to the encyclopædia's use, called Propædia.

[2] In 1996, Britannica was sold to an investment group led by Jacob E. Safra, a Switzerland-based financier.

Safra also dissolved the home sales force, with an additional 140 losing their jobs, along with 300 independent contractors.

[7] In 2019, in a partnership with Binumi, Britannica released a video product that gives schools the opportunity to use millions of royalty-free multimedia clips to create digital storytelling projects about content they are already teaching.