Geographical distribution

Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language. English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second to a combination of the Chinese languages (depending on whether or not distinctions in the latter are classified as "languages" or "dialects").

Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly from 470 million to over a billion depending on how literacy or mastery is defined and measured. Linguistics professor David Crystal calculates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.

The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: the United States (226 million), the United Kingdom (61 million), Canada (18.2 million), Australia (15.5 million), Nigeria (4 million), Ireland (3.8 million), South Africa (3.7 million), and New Zealand (3.6 million) in a 2006 Census.

Countries such as the Philippines, Jamaica and Nigeria also have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to a more standard version of English. Of those nations where English is spoken as a second language, India has the most such speakers (see Indian English). Crystal claims that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world.

Country	Total	Percent of population	First language	As an additional language	Population	Comment
United States	267,444,149	95%	225,505,953	41,938,196	280,950,438	Source: American Community Survey: Language Use in the United States: 2007, Table 1. Figure for second language speakers are respondents who reported they do not speak English at home but know it "very well" or "well." Figures are for population age 5 and older.
India	125,344,736	12%	226,449	86,125,221 second language speakers. 38,993,066 third language speakers	1,028,737,436	Source: Census 2001, Figures include both those who speak English as a second language and those who speak it as a third language. The figures include English speakers, but not English users.
Pakistan	88,690,000	49%		88,690,000	180,440,005	Source: Euromonitor International report 2009. "The Benefits of the English Language for Individuals and Societies: Quantitative Indicators from Cameroon,Nigeria, Rwanda, Bangladesh and Pakistan." 'A custom report compiled by Euromonitor International for the British Council'.
Nigeria	79,000,000	53%	4,000,000	>75,000,000	148,000,000	Figures are for speakers of Nigerian Pidgin, an English-based pidgin or creole. Ihemere gives a range of roughly 3 to 5 million native speakers; the midpoint of the range is used in the table. Ihemere, Kelechukwu Uchechukwu (2006). "A Basic Description and Analytic Treatment of Noun Clauses in Nigerian Pidgin". Nordic Journal of African Studies 15 (3): 296–313.
United Kingdom	59,600,000	98%	58,100,000	1,500,000	60,000,000	Source: Crystal (2005), p. 109.
Philippines	48,800,000	58%^[59]	3,427,000^[59]	43,974,000	84,566,000	Total speakers: Census 2000, text above Figure 7, 63.71% of the 66.7 million people aged 5 years or more could speak English. Native speakers: Census 1995.^[60] Ethnologue lists 3.4 million native speakers with 52% of the population speaking it as an additional language.^[59]
Canada	25,246,220	85%	17,694,830	7,551,390	29,639,030	Source: 2001 Census – Knowledge of Official Languagesand Mother Tongue. The native speakers figure comprises 122,660 people with both French and English as a mother tongue, plus 17,572,170 people with English and not French as a mother tongue.
Australia	18,172,989	92%	15,581,329	2,591,660	19,855,288	Source: 2006 Census.^[61] The figure shown in the first language English speakers column is actually the number of Australian residents who speak only English at home. The additional language column shows the number of other residents who claim to speak English "well" or "very well". Another 5% of residents did not state their home language or English proficiency.
New Zealand	3,673,626	91.2%	3,008,058	665,568	4,027,947	Source: 2006 Census.^[62] The figures are people who can speak English with sufficient fluency to hold an everyday conversation. The figure shown in the first language English speakers column is actually the number of New Zealand residents who reported to speak English only, while the additional language column shows the number of New Zealand residents who reported to speak English as one of two or more languages.

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