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The following is a list of sovereign states and territories where English is an official language, in order of population. Several of these nations, like Canada and the Philippines, use English as an official language but not the sole official language.
This list also includes countries where English is the dominant language, but does not have official status. In Australia, English is spoken by the vast majority of the population, but it is not an official language. This is the same in the U.S. and the UK, although some states or regions within the UK and the U.S. have English as an official language.
The status of English as a country's official language does not necessarily correlate with the number of English-speakers in that country. India, for example, with a population of 1.1 billion, has fewer than 200,000 native speakers of English and approximately 100 million second-language English speakers (who form less than 10% of its population). Nigeria on the other hand, has a small percentage of ''Standard English'' second-language speakers; however, more than 60% of its population speaks Nigerian Pidgin English, which although not a dialect of English, does contain many English words and possesses an English-''like'' grammatical structure.

Almost all of these countries are current or former colonies or dependencies of the UK (see also British Empire) or the United States. The notable exception is Madagascar, which is a former French colony with English speaking neighbors.
India's linguistic picture is complex. According to the Constitution of India, "Hindi in the Devanagari script" is the official language of the union^[1] and English the 'subsidiary official language'; Notification No. 2/8/60-O.L. (Ministry of Home Affairs), dated 27th April, 1960 however, English is mandated for the authoritative texts of all federal laws and Supreme Court decisions, and (along with Hindi) is one of the two languages of the Indian Parliament. See Official Languages of India.
These nations total 2.135 billion people, 15,583,152 square miles and about 18 trillion US dollars in GDP. India represents over half this population, and the United States represents over half this GDP.

Contents

Sovereign states

Dependent entities

See also

Footnotes

References

Sovereign states

'Rank'	'Country ( ★ = widely spoken but not an official language)'	'Population'
1	India	1,103,600,000
2	United States ★	300,007,997
3	Pakistan	162,419,946
4	Nigeria	128,771,988
5	Philippines	87,857,473
6	United Kingdom ★	60,441,457
7	South Africa	44,344,136
8	Kenya	33,829,590
9	Canada	32,300,000
10	Uganda	27,269,482
11	Ghana	21,029,853
12	Australia ★	20,800,000
13	Sri Lanka	20,064,776
14	Madagascar	19,280,000
15	Cameroon	16,380,005
16	Zimbabwe	12,746,990
17	Malawi	12,158,924
18	Zambia	11,261,795
19	Rwanda	8,440,820
20	Sierra Leone	6,017,643
21	Papua New Guinea	5,545,268
22	Singapore	4,425,720
23	Republic of Ireland	4,130,700
24	New Zealand ★	4,108,561
25	Liberia	3,482,211
26	Jamaica	2,731,832
27	Namibia	2,030,692
28	Lesotho	1,867,035
29	Botswana	1,640,115
30	The Gambia	1,593,256
31	Mauritius	1,230,602
32	Swaziland	1,173,900
33	Trinidad and Tobago	1,088,644
34	Fiji	893,354
35	Guyana	765,283
36	Solomon Islands	538,032
37	Malta	398,534
38	The Bahamas	301,790
39	Belize	279,457
40	Barbados	279,254
41	Vanuatu	205,754
42	Saint Lucia	166,312
43	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	117,534
44	Micronesia, Federated States of	108,105
45	Kiribati	103,092
46	Grenada	89,502
47	Seychelles	81,188
48	Dominica	69,029
49	Antigua and Barbuda	68,722
50	Marshall Islands	59,071
51	Saint Kitts and Nevis	38,958
52	Palau	20,303

Dependent entities

'Rank'	'Country ( ★ = widely spoken but not an official language)'	'Population'
1	Hong Kong	6,898,686
2	Puerto Rico	3,912,054
3	Guam	108,708
4	U.S. Virgin Islands	108,708
5	Jersey	88,200
6	Northern Mariana Islands	80,801
7	Isle of Man	75,049
8	Bermuda	65,365
9	Guernsey	65,228
10	American Samoa	64,869
11	Cayman Islands	44,270
12	Gibraltar	27,884
13	British Virgin Islands	22,643
14	Cook Islands	21,388
15	Turks and Caicos Islands	20,556
16	Anguilla	13,254
17	Montserrat	9,341
18	Saint Helena	7,460
19	Falkland Islands	2,967
20	Norfolk Island	1,828
21	Christmas Island	1,600
22	Tristan da Cunha	273
23	Pitcairn Islands	67

See also

★ List of countries by English-speaking population

★ Anglosphere

★ List of countries by spoken languages

★ List of countries where French is an official language

Footnotes

# The population figures are based on List of countries by population.
# Hong Kong is a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China
# Puerto Rico is an unincorporated United States territory called a "commonwealth"
# Guam is an organized unincorporated territory of the United States
# The US Virgin Islands is an insular area of the United States
# Jersey is a British Crown dependency
# The Northern Mariana Islands is a commonwealth in political union with the United States
# Isle Of Man is a British Crown dependency
# Bermuda is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom
# Guernsey is a British Crown dependency
# American Samoa is an unincorporated U.S. territory
# Christmas Island is an external territory of Australia
#Pitcairn Islands is a British overseas territory

References

1. The Union: Official Language