Official Languages Around the World
What is an official language? It is a language that has been legally declared to be the official language for a country. Some countries have more than one official language, while others have no official language that has been declared at all!
Which languages were found to be declared “official” in the most countries? The chart below shares the answer to this question by looking at all of the languages that have been deemed official for two or more countries and laid the information out in an aesthetically pleasing bubble chart, where each bubble is made up of all of the countries for that specific language.
So which language was found to be the official language of the most countries? English comes out on top, by a lot, and was found to be legally declared the official language of 55 countries and the de facto language of 4 countries.
What is a de facto language? A language is considered to be the de facto national language when it is the most widely spoken among the population but the language was never legally declared to be the official one for the country. Did you know that English is the de facto language of both the United States and the United Kingdom? Mexico has never declared an official language either, with Spanish being the de facto there.
Below is a map of where the top 5 official languages can be found across the world. The 5 biggest languages include: English, French, Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese.
- English is the official language of 55 countries and the de facto national language in 4 countries
- French is the official language of 29 countries
- Arabic is the official language of 22 countries
- Spanish is the official language of 15 countries and the de facto national language in 5 countries.
- Portuguese is the official language of 10 countries.
You can see by the map just how widespread these 5 languages are, which more the half of the world having declared one (or more) of them to be the official language.
Which country has the most official languages? Zimbabwe, which shows up multiple times in the bubble chart, has the most official languages out of all the country in the world with 16! India is a close contender with 22 official languages within the country, but many are only considered official at the regional language and not national.