The 20 Most Wired Countries In the World

Europe and East Asia are the most connected regions, but Russia and South America are going mobile.

It has long been known that Scandanavian countries are among the most technologically advanced and connected in the world - as shown in this infographic from Wise in 2014.

However, how does the map look when you compare just the world's largest populations and economies?

We've crunched data from the ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators database - looking at fixed broadband penetration, mobile broadband penetration and the percentage of households that use the Internet - for 20 countries with over 5 million internet subscriptions to create a 'most wired' index.

While there are tiny countries like Singapore, Estonia, Finland and Luxembourg that have high mobile penetration or internet usage, we've looked exclusively at the largest populations and world economies to see how they compare.

The results show that Europe and East Asia are forging ahead. The Netherlands, Japan and the UK fill the top three spots, while South Korea, Germany, Australia and France tail them closely.

Meanwhile, Canada and the U.S. are further behind, with lower mobile penetration and broadband uptake, relative to their transatlantic and transpacific neighbours. However, they both have high internet usage overall, particularly Canada.

Interestingly, Italy and Russia are among the countries with lower overall connectivity, despite a very high mobile penetration.

Sending money internationally? Bank accounts in multiple countries? Wise can save you some money.

Wise uses the real exchange rate with no mark-up, unlike banks and brokers which add a big rate mark-up on top of their stated fees. And you'll save even more by avoiding the international Swift fees and the intermediary banks, when you send and receive money abroad.

Check here and check how much you'd get with Wise.

It's cheap, fast, and you know exactly how much you pay and how much reaches the destination. With no unpleasant surprises.

Wise: start saving