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It still amazes me that the British Empire ...

There hasn't been anything called the British Empire or even the British Commonwealth for a long time.

Pretty much everyone in New Zealand speaks English. The fact that Maori is an "official language" basically just means that all of the government minitries have Maori names as well as English ones, and Maori shows up in various government-produced documents. Almost no one (if anyone) speaks Maori as a first language, and very few speak it as a second language.

You can read more about the status of English in India here. Sounds like a pretty high percentage of Indians speak English.

You also forgot to include the many other members of the Commonwealth, which, since they are former British colonies, will include a lot of English-speakers. To say nothing of the huge number of Europeans who speak English as a second language. Ditto English-speaking Asians.

... Greenland which is/was an autonomous region of Denmark. Sort of like Canada and the UK.

Actually, Canada is not an autonomous region of the UK at all. Canada ceased being a part of the UK in 1867. Canada does happen to share the same monarch as the UK, but she does so as the "Queen of Canada." Canada is also a member nation of The Commonwealth , but this does not make us a region of the UK.

Changing topic slightly but a misunderstanding I've come across a few times is that many member countries of The Commonweath these days are republics and therefore their citizens are not subjects of the Queen.

See thecommonwealth.org

I'd be curious to see a list of countries who she is head of state for.

this sounds like a bunch of people not willing to take a risk and just waiting for the next person to take on the responsibility..

commonwealth countries like australia can have knighted people.

I wonder if that applies to countries who are members of the commonwealth but don't have the Queen as their head of state. Many commonwealth countries are like that these days.

For several decades, the word "Commonwealth" has referred to the 54 nation alliance of former british colonies, much like the word "America" refers to the US. Die hard Commonwealth countries like Canada and Australia still consider the Queen of England to be their leader (a dubious sense of judgement, but oh well).

The other commonwealth is the CIS - Commonwealth of Independent States, a horrible name chosen for the group of nations which were once part of the USSR. Not sure if the CIS still exists in theory, or if they even care.

And now comes Massachusetts, kinda late to the party of entities vying for the moniker "commonwealth", but then it has the advantage of a ghastly URL...

I'd say they're too late to form a name brand at this point, but then, they are too clueless to care.

Wooly Mammoth.