Which languages are official in the most countries
AM Ismail - AtlasGenie Team · Published
Some languages are spoken by hundreds of millions of people in just one or two countries, while others are official across dozens. Here's how the main languages rank by the number of countries that use them officially, counting the 195 countries in AtlasGenie.
The top of the list
| Language | Countries where it's official |
|---|---|
| English | 58 |
| French | 30 |
| Arabic | 24 |
| Spanish | 20 |
| Portuguese | 9 |
| German | 6 |
| Russian | 5 |
| Swahili | 5 |
| Italian | 4 |
Counts vary between sources, because some countries name national languages, regional languages or languages with special status, and sources draw the line in different places. These numbers use AtlasGenie's own data, the same data behind the Languages quiz.
Why English and French lead
Both spread through empires and stayed on as official languages after independence, often alongside local languages. English is official everywhere from Nigeria and India to small island nations in the Caribbean and the Pacific. French remains official across much of West and Central Africa, as well as in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and Haiti.
Arabic and Spanish
Arabic is official across North Africa and the Middle East, from Morocco to Iraq, and in countries such as Somalia, Djibouti and Comoros. Spanish covers most of Latin America plus Spain and Equatorial Guinea, the only country in Africa where Spanish is official.
The smaller groups worth knowing
- Portuguese (9): Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Timor-Leste and Equatorial Guinea.
- German (6): Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Belgium.
- Russian (5): Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
- Swahili (5): Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and DR Congo.
- Italian (4): Italy, San Marino, Switzerland and Vatican City.
Most languages belong to one country
AtlasGenie's data includes 125 different official languages, and 92 of them are official in only one country, such as Amharic in Ethiopia, Icelandic in Iceland and Thai in Thailand. Those make the easiest Languages quiz questions, because the language points to exactly one answer.
Countries with many official languages
At the other end, some countries recognise many languages at once. South Africa has twelve official languages, including English, Zulu, Xhosa and Afrikaans, and Bolivia recognises Spanish and dozens of Indigenous languages.
