The Scottish comedian and successful chat show host Craig Ferguson is to finally become an official US citizen, after gathering more than 16,000 honorary titles in his new home across the Atlantic.

The Scottish comedian and successful chat show host Craig Ferguson is to finally become an official US citizen, after gathering more than 16,000 honorary titles in his new home across the Atlantic.

Ferguson, who has become one of the best-known personalities on US screens due to the success of his Late Late Show, has announced that he is to be sworn-in as a citizen of the States, in a few weeks.

The host announced on Monday that he got a perfect score on his citizenship test, which he took on Friday in Los Angeles.

"All of you people born here, if you had to take that test - well, Canada would be building a fence right now," he said on his CBS show.

The question of Ferguson's citizenship started as a joke last June, when he received a letter from the mayor of the town of Ozark, Arkansas, granting him "honorary citizenship" for his kind words about the town's catfish.

Ferguson started a campaign to be honoured with the same designation elsewhere and is now an honourary citizen of 16,109 communities across the US.

Deciding to become a citizen of the nation at large required him to take a test with such questions as "What month is the new President inaugurated?" and "Who is the chief justice of the Supreme Court?"

Last night, Ferguson joked that President George W Bush's final State of the Union address "was like a farewell, special edition of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"

He added: "I'm getting cocky for someone who is not yet a citizen, aren't I?"