As of today, there are approximately 7000 spoken languages in the world. The great majority of these languages are spoken by very tiny minorities. It might come as a surprise to know that about 70% of the world’s population, two-thirds of the people walking the earth right now, use or speak only 16 of these languages.
While it’s relatively easy to know how many people speak the popular languages, it’s not as easy to know the countries where they are spoken. A lot of factors make this matter complicated, such as whether a said language is official, regional, or widely spoken. To give you a clear insight into where the most popular languages are spoken, MapChart.net has put together a set of maps to visualize the countries that speak the 16 most popular languages. Here is a descending list. (click on maps to enlarge)
1. English — 1.5 Billion Speakers
2. Mandarin Chinese — 1.3 Billion Speakers
3. Spanish — 661 Million Speakers
4. Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu) — 544 Million Speakers
5. Arabic — 422 Million Speakers
6. Malay — 281 Million Speakers
7. Russian — 267 Million Speakers
8. Bengali — 261 Million Speakers
9. Portuguese — 229 Million Speakers
10. French — 229 Million Speakers
11. Hausa — 150 Million Speakers
12. Punjabi — 148 Million Speakers
13. German — 129 Million Speakers
14. Japanese — 129 Million Speakers
15. Persian — 121 Million Speakers
16. Swahili — 107 Million Speakers
