Nearly two billion people - that's almost one in three people - study English as a non-native language.

In the developing world, English is less of a foreign language skill and more a tool synonymous with development, expanding a country's economy and increasing its connectedness to the rest of the world.

And for small countries with few native-language speakers, it also makes sense to learn a little of the world's lingua franca for business and policy making.

The English Proficiency Index has just released statistics on where English is learned around the world and quality of teaching to find the countries with the highest proficiency of English as a second language:

Four Nordic countries and the Netherlands come top of the rankings, with at least 65 per cent of the population fluent in English.

Other European nations dominate the rest of the list.

The only non-European countries to feature are highly-developed city state Singapore, and its neighbour Malaysia, as well as Argentina.

You can read the full report here.