Number of Countries With The Same Official Language
This is a ranking of languages by number of sovereign countries in which they are de jure or de facto official.
| Language | World | Africa | Americas | Asia | Europe | Oceania | Countries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | 59 | 24 | 16 | 4 | 3 | 12 | India, United States, Pakistan, United Kingdom. See the full list |
| French | 29 | 21 | 2 | - | 5 | 1 | France, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Canada, Madagascar. See the full list |
| Arabic | 26 | 14 | - | 12 | - | - | Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Morocco. See the full list |
| Spanish | 21 | 1 | 19 | - | 1 | - | Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina. See the full list |
| Portuguese | 11 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola. See full list |
| Russian | 8 | - | - | 3 | 5 | - | Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Abkhazia*, South Ossetia*, Transnistria*. See also the full list |
| German | 6 | - | - | - | 6 | - | Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg |
| Italian | 4 | - | - | - | 4 | - | Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City |
| Malay | - | - | 4 | - | - | Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei | |
| Chinese | 3 | - | - | 3 | - | - | China, Taiwan, Singapore |
| Dutch | - | 1 | - | 2 | - | Netherlands, Belgium, Surinam | |
| Persian | - | - | 3 | - | - | Iran, Afghanistan (known as Dari), Tajikistan (known as Tajik) | |
| Romanian | - | - | - | 3 | - | Romania, Moldova, Transnistria* (uses Cyrillic script there) | |
| Serbian | - | - | - | 3 | - | Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo* | |
| Swahili | 3 | - | - | - | - | Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda |
Several languages are officially used in two countries, these are:
- Albanian - Albania and Kosovo*
- Armenian - Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh*
- Aymara, Quechua - Bolivia and Peru
- Chewa - Malawi and Zambia
- Croatian - Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Greek - Greece and Cyprus
- Korean - North Korea and South Korea
- Slovak - Slovakia and Czech Republic
- Sotho - South Africa and Lesotho
- Swati - South Africa and Swaziland
- Swedish - Sweden and Finland
- Tswana - South Africa and Botswana
- Turkish - Turkey and Cyprus
- Ukrainian - Ukraine and Transnistria*
- Note
- Asterisk shows the countries which independence is disputed
Read more about this topic: List Of Official Languages
Famous quotes containing the words number of, number, countries, official and/or language:
“I happen to feel that the degree of a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic.”
—Lisa Alther (b. 1944)
“If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take us as long to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking. All recollected times undergo, accordingly, what M. Ribot calls foreshortening; and this foreshortening is due to the omission of an enormous number of facts which filled them.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“As in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must still more distinguish the language and the imaginary aspirations of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)