List of most-widely spoken languages (by number of countries)
This is a list of the most widely-spoken languages in the world sorted by the number of countries in which the language is spoken. A language has been deemed to be spoken in a country if it is the official language of that country or is spoken natively as a first language by a majority of that country's inhabitants.
Ranking by number of countries |
Language |
Number of countries |
Countries |
|---|---|---|---|
1 |
French |
34 |
Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Channel Islands, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabon, Guinea, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Switzerland, Togo, Vanuatu, Andorra, Grenada, French Overseas Territories |
2 |
English |
30 |
United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, British Overseas Territories, Singapore, Malaysia, Belize, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Northern Mariana Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, The Bahamas, Barbados, Guam, Cayman Islands,The Philippines, India, Pakistan,Trinidad and Tobago, Malta, Hong Kong, Botswana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Zimbabwe |
3 |
Spanish |
26 |
Andorra, Argentina, Bolivia, Belize, Gibraltar (British Overseas Territory), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, The Philippines, Spain, Uruguay, Venezuela, Western Sahara |
4 |
Arabic |
24 |
Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Jordan, Mauritania, Palestinian territories, Israel, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Chad, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Djibouti, Somalia, Western Sahara |
5 |
Russian |
11 |
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan |
6 |
Portuguese |
9 |
Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Goa, Macau, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau |
See also
- List of languages by number of native speakers - a similar list but from various sources
- Ethnologue list of most-spoken languages