Spanish, Castilian
español, castellano
Pronunciation	[espaˈɲol], [kasteˈʎano]
Spoken in	(see below)
Native speakers	400 million[1][2][3] 500 million as first or second language.[4]
Language family	Indo-European Italic Romance Western Romance Gallo-Iberian Ibero-Romance West Iberian Spanish, Castilian
Writing system	Latin (Spanish alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	21 countries De jure:  Bolivia  Colombia  Costa Rica  Cuba  Dominican Republic  Ecuador  El Salvador  Equatorial Guinea  Guatemala  Honduras  Panama  Paraguay  Peru  Puerto Rico  Spain  Venezuela De facto:  Argentina  Chile  Mexico  Nicaragua  Uruguay Minority language in:  Federated States of Micronesia  Guam  Marshall Islands  Northern Mariana Islands  Palau  Philippines International Organisations:  United Nations  Andean Community  European Union  Mercosur  Organization of American States  Union of South American Nations (see many more)
Regulated by	Association of Spanish Language Academies (Real Academia Española and 21 other national Spanish language academies)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	es
ISO 639-2	spa
ISO 639-3	spa
Linguasphere	51-AAA-b
Countries where Spanish has official status.   Countries and U.S. states where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 25% or more of the population.   Countries and U.S. states where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 10–20% of the population.   Countries and U.S. states where Spanish has no official status but is spoken by 5–9.9% of the population.
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Spanish (español) is a Romance language named for its origins as the native tongue of a large proportion of the inhabitants of Spain. It is also named Castilian (castellano  listen (help·info)) after the Spanish region of Castile where it originated. Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]}

In 1999 there were, according to Ethnologue, 358 million people speaking Spanish as a native language and a total of 417 million speakers^[12] worldwide. Currently these figures are up to 400^[2][3] and 500^{[4][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]} million people respectively. Mexico contains the largest population of Spanish speakers. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and is used as an official language by the European Union and Mercosur.

Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of spoken Latin in central-northern Iberia around the ninth century^[28] and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile (present northern Spain) into central and southern Iberia during the later Middle Ages. Early in its history, the Spanish vocabulary was enriched by its contact with Basque and Arabic, and the language continues to adopt foreign words from a variety of other languages, as well as developing new words. Spanish was taken most notably to the Americas as well as to Africa and Asia-Pacific with the expansion of the Spanish Empire between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, where it became the most important language for government and trade.^[29]

Due to its increasing presence in the demographics and popular culture of the United States, particularly in the fast-growing states of the Sun Belt, Spanish is the most popular second language learned by native speakers of American English. The increasing political stability and economies of many larger Hispanophone nations, the language's immense geographic extent in Latin America and Europe for tourism, and the growing popularity of warmer, more affordable, and culturally vibrant retirement destinations found in the Hispanic world have contributed significantly to the growth of learning Spanish as a foreign language across the globe.

Spanish is the third most commonly used language on the Internet after English and Mandarin. It is also the second most studied language and second language in international communication, after English, in the world.^[30][31][32]

Names of the language[link]

Geographical distribution of the preferential use of the terms castellano (Castilian), in red, vs. español (Spanish), in blue.

In Spain and in some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called castellano (Castilian) as well as español (Spanish), that is, the language of the region of Castile, contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician, Basque, and Catalan. Speakers of these regional languages prefer the term castellano, as they consider their own languages equally "Spanish". The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole Spanish State, in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas (lit. the rest of the Spanish languages). Article III reads as follows:

El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. (...) Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas...
Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. (...) The rest of the Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities...

The Spanish Royal Academy, on the other hand, currently uses the term español in its publications but from 1713 to 1923 called the language castellano.

Two etymologies for español have been suggested. The Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, 'from—or pertaining to—Hispania'.^[33] Other authorities^[34][35] attribute it to a supposed medieval Latin *hispaniōne, with the same meaning. The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (a language guide published by the Spanish Royal Academy) states that, although the Spanish Royal Academy prefers to use the term español in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms, español and castellano, are regarded as synonymous and equally valid.^[36]

The name castellano is preferred in all of Spanish-speaking South America except Colombia. The term español is more commonly used to refer to the language as a whole when relating to a global context.

History[link]

A page of Cantar de Mio Cid, the oldest preserved Spanish epic poem, in medieval Spanish.

Antonio de Nebrija author of the Gramática, the first Grammar of modern European languages.

Miguel de Cervantes.

The first documents regarded as precursors of modern Spanish are from the ninth century. The dialects reflected in those documents emerged from the ancestral Vulgar Latin (common Latin), which had been brought to Iberia by the Romans during the Second Punic War around 210 BC, absorbing influences from the native Iberian languages such as Celtiberian, Basque and other paleohispanic languages. Later, it gained other external influences, most notably from the Arabic of the later Al-Andalus period.^[37]

Local versions of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish in the central-north of Iberia, in an area defined by the then remote crossroad strips of Álava, Cantabria, Burgos, Soria and La Rioja, within the Kingdom of Castile (see Glosas Emilianenses). Several features from these dialects are thought to have been brought later to the city of Toledo, were the written standard of Spanish was first developed, in the 13th century.^[38] In this formative stage, Spanish (Castilian) developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin, Leonese, and, according to some authors, was distinguished by a heavy Basque influence (see Iberian Romance languages). This distinctive dialect progressively spread south with the advance of the Reconquista, and so gathered a sizable lexical influence from Al-Andalus Arabic, especially in the later Medieval period. The written standard for this new language was developed in the cities of Toledo (13th to 16th centuries) and Madrid (from the 1560s).^[38]

The development of the Spanish sound system from that of Vulgar Latin exhibits most of the changes that are typical of Western Romance languages, including lenition of intervocalic consonants (thus Latin vīta > Spanish vida). The diphthongization of Latin stressed short e and o—which occurred in open syllables in French and Italian, but not at all in Catalan or Portuguese—is found in both open and closed syllables in Spanish, as shown in the following table:

Spanish is marked by the palatalization of the Latin double consonants nn and ll (thus Latin annum > Spanish año, and Latin anellum > Spanish anillo).

The consonant written ⟨u⟩ or ⟨v⟩ in Latin and pronounced [w] in Classical Latin had probably "fortified" to a bilabial fricative /β/ in Vulgar Latin. In early Spanish (but not in Catalan or Portuguese) it merged with the consonant written ⟨b⟩ (a bilabial with plosive and fricative allophones). In modern Spanish, there is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩.

Peculiar to Spanish (as well as to the neighboring Gascon dialect of Occitan, and sometimes attributed to a Basque substratum) was the mutation of Latin initial f- into h- whenever it was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongize. The h-, still preserved in spelling, is now silent in most varieties of the language, although in some Andalusian and Caribbean dialects it is still aspirated in some words.

Compare the examples in the following table:

Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, as shown in the examples in the following table:

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Spanish underwent a dramatic change in the pronunciation of its sibilant consonants, known in Spanish as the Reajuste de las sibilantes, which resulted in the distinctive velar [x] pronunciation of the letter ⟨j⟩ and—in a large part of Spain—the characteristic interdental [θ] ("th-sound") for the letter ⟨z⟩ (and for ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩). See History of Spanish (Modern development of the Old Spanish sibilants) for details.

The Gramática de la lengua castellana, written in Salamanca in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija, was the first grammar written for a modern European language.^[39] According to a popular anecdote, when Nebrija presented it to Queen Isabella I, she asked him what was the use of such a work, and he answered that language is the instrument of empire.^[40] In his introduction to the grammar, dated August 18, 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire."^[41]

From the sixteenth century onwards, the language was taken to America and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization of America. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quixote, is such a well-known reference in the world that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes").^[42]

In the twentieth century, Spanish was introduced to Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara, and to areas of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City. For details on borrowed words and other external influences upon Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language.

Grammar[link]

Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender noun system and about fifty conjugated forms per verb, but with inflection of nouns, adjectives, and determiners limited to number and gender. (For a detailed overview of verbs, see Spanish verbs and Spanish irregular verbs.)

Spanish syntax is considered right-branching, meaning that subordinate or modifying constituents tend to be placed after their head words. The language uses prepositions (rather than postpositions or inflection of nouns for case), and usually—though not always—places adjectives after nouns, as do most other Romance languages. Its sentence structure is generally subject–verb–object, although variations are common. It is a "pro-drop", or "null-subject" language—that is, it allows the deletion of subject pronouns when they are pragmatically unnecessary. Spanish is described as a "verb-framed" language, meaning that the direction of motion is expressed in the verb while the mode of locomotion is expressed adverbially (e.g. subir corriendo or salir volando; the respective English equivalents of these examples—'to run up' and 'to fly out'—show that English is, by contrast, "satellite-framed", with mode of locomotion expressed in the verb and direction in an adverbial modifier).

Phonology[link]

Segmental phonology[link]

The Spanish phonemic inventory consists of five vowel phonemes (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/) and 17 to 19 consonant phonemes (the exact number depending on the dialect). The main allophonic variation among vowels is the reduction of the high vowels /i/ and /u/ to glides—[j] and [w] respectively—when unstressed and adjacent to another vowel. Some instances of the mid vowels /e/ and /o/, determined lexically, alternate with the diphthongs [je] and [we] respectively when stressed, in a process that is better described as morphophonemic rather than phonological, as it is not predictable from phonology alone.

The Spanish consonant system is characterized by (1) three nasal phonemes, which in syllable-final position lose their contrast and are subject to assimilation to a following consonant; (2) three voiceless stops and the affricate /tʃ/; (3) three or four (depending on the dialect) voiceless fricatives; (4) a set of voiced obstruents—/b/, /d/, /ɡ/, and sometimes /ʝ/—which alternate between fricative and plosive allophones depending on the environment; and (5) a phonemic distinction between the "tapped" and "trilled" r-sounds (single ⟨r⟩ and double ⟨rr⟩ in orthography).

In the following table of consonant phonemes, /θ/ and /ʎ/ are marked with an asterisk (*) to indicate that they are preserved only in some dialects. In most dialects they have been merged, respectively, with /s/ and /ʝ/, in the mergers called, respectively, seseo and yeísmo. The phoneme /ʃ/ is in parentheses () to indicate that it appears only in loanwords. Each of the voiced obstruent phonemes /b/, /d/, /ʝ/, and /ɡ/ appears to the right of a pair of voiceless phonemes, to indicate that, while the voiceless phonemes maintain a phonemic contrast between plosive (or affricate) and fricative, the voiced ones alternate allophonically (i.e. without phonemic contrast) between plosive and fricative pronunciations.

V and B

The letters ⟨v⟩ and ⟨b⟩ are both normally pronounced identically as /b/ or similar, and this is the only correct pronunciation. The Royal Spanish Academy considers the /v/ pronunciation for the letter ⟨v⟩ to be incorrect and affected. However, some Spanish speakers maintain the pronunciation of the /v/ sound as it is in other western European languages. The sound /v/ is used for the letter ⟨v⟩, in the Spanish language, by a few second-language speakers in Spain whose native language is Catalan, in the Balearic Islands, in the Valencian Community, and in southern Catalonia.^[44] In the USA it is also common due to the proximity and influence of English phonology, and the /v/ is also occasionally used in Mexico. Some parts of Central America also use /v/, which the Royal Academy attributes to the interference of local indigenous languages.

Historically, the /v/ pronunciation was uncommon, but considered correct well into the twentieth century.

Prosody[link]

Spanish is classified by its rhythm as a syllable-timed language, meaning that each syllable has approximately the same duration regardless of stress.^[45][46]

Spanish intonation varies significantly according to dialect, but generally conforms to a pattern of falling tone for declarative sentences and wh-questions (who, what, why, etc.), and rising tone for yes/no questions.^[47][48] Subject/verb inversion is not required in questions, and thus the recognition of declarative or interrogative may depend entirely on intonation.

Stress most often occurs on any of the last three syllables of a word, with some rare exceptions at the fourth-last or earlier syllables. The tendencies of stress assignment are as follows:^[49]

• In words that end with a vowel, stress most often falls on the penultimate syllable.
• In words that end with a consonant, stress most often falls on the last syllable, with the following exceptions: The grammatical endings -n (for third-person-plural of verbs) and -s (whether for plural of nouns and adjectives or for second-person-singular of verbs) do not change the location of stress. Thus regular verbs ending with -n and the great majority of words ending with -s are stressed on the penult. Although a significant number of nouns and adjectives ending with -n are also stressed on the penult (e.g. joven, virgen, mitin), the great majority of nouns and adjectives ending with -n are stressed on their last syllable (e.g. capitán, almacén, jardín, corazón).
• Preantepenultimate stress (stress on the fourth-to-last syllable) occurs rarely, and only on verbs with clitic pronouns attached (e.g. guardándoselos 'saving them for him/her/them').

In addition to the many exceptions to these tendencies, there are numerous minimal pairs which contrast solely on stress such as sábana ('sheet') and sabana ('savannah'), as well as límite ('boundary'), limite ('[that] he/she limits') and limité ('I limited'), or also líquido ('liquid'), liquido ('I sell off') and liquidó ('he/she sold off').

The spelling system unambiguously reflects where the stress occurs: in the absence of an accent mark, the stress falls on the last syllable unless the last letter is ⟨n⟩, ⟨s⟩, or a vowel, in which cases the stress falls on the next-to-last syllable; if and only if the absence of an accent mark would give the wrong stress information, an acute accent mark appears over the stressed syllable.

Geographical distribution[link]

Active learning of Spanish.^[50]

Spanish is the primary language of 20 countries worldwide. It is estimated that the combined total number of Spanish speakers is between 470 and 500 million, making it the second most widely spoken language in terms of native speakers.^[51][52] Spanish is the third most spoken language by total number of speakers (after Mandarin and English). Internet usage statistics for 2007 show Spanish as the third most commonly used language on the Internet, after English and Mandarin.^[53]

Europe[link]

Knowledge of Spanish language in European Union in 2006.

  Native country

  More than 8.99%

  Between 4% and 8.99%

  Between 1% and 3.99%

  Less than 1%

In Europe, Spanish is an official language of Spain, the country after which it is named and from which it originated. It is widely spoken in Gibraltar, although English is the official language.^[54] It is also commonly spoken in Andorra, although Catalan is the official language.^[55] Spanish is also spoken by small communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.^[56] Spanish is an official language of the European Union. In Switzerland, Spanish is the native language of 1.7% of the population, representing the largest minority after the 4 official languages of the country.^[57]

Spanish is the fourth most widely studied second language in Western Europe after English, French, and German.^{[citation needed]} In countries where those languages are natively spoken, chiefly France, the United Kingdom and Germany, Spanish is often the third most popular foreign language.^{[citation needed]} Neighbouring Portugal and France have considerable minorities with a high degree of Spanish competency.^{[citation needed]}

The Americas[link]

Latin America[link]

Most Spanish speakers are in Latin America; of all countries with a majority of Spanish speakers, only Spain and Equatorial Guinea are outside America. Mexico has the most native speakers of any country. Nationally, Spanish is the official language—either de facto or de jure—of Argentina, Bolivia (co-official with Quechua and Aymara), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní),^[58] Ecuador and Peru (co-official with Quechua and, in some regions, Aymara), Uruguay, and Venezuela. Spanish is also the de facto and official language (co-official with English, although only a very small percentage know and use U.S. English) in Puerto Rico.^[59]

Spanish has no official recognition in the former British colony of Belize; however, per the 2000 census, it is spoken by 43% of the population.^[60][61] Mainly, it is spoken by the descendants of Hispanics who have been in the region since the seventeenth century; however, English is the official language.^[62]

Spain colonized Trinidad and Tobago first in 1498, introducing the Spanish language to the Carib people. Also the Cocoa Panyols, laborers from Venezuela, took their culture and language with them; they are accredited with the music of "Parang" ("Parranda") on the island. Because of Trinidad's location on the South American coast, the country is greatly influenced by its Spanish-speaking neighbors. A recent census shows that more than 1,500 inhabitants speak Spanish.^[63] In 2004, the government launched the Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005.^[64] Government regulations require Spanish to be taught, beginning in primary school, while thirty percent of public employees are to be linguistically competent within five years.^[63]

Spanish is important in Brazil because of its proximity to and increased trade with its Spanish-speaking neighbors, and because of its membership in the Mercosur trading bloc and the Union of South American Nations.^[65] In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President, making Spanish language teaching mandatory in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil.^[66] In many border towns and villages (especially in the Uruguayan-Brazilian and Paraguayan-Brazilian border areas), a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken.^[67]

United States[link]

Spanish spoken in the United States. Darker shades of blue indicate higher percentages of Spanish speakers.

According to 2006 census data, 44.3 million people of the U.S. population were Hispanic or Latino by origin;^[68] 34 million people, 12.2 percent, of the population more than five years old speak Spanish at home.^[69] Spanish has a long history in the United States because many south-western states were part of Mexico, and Florida was also a colony of Spain. The language recently has been revitalized in the U.S. by an influx of Hispanic immigrants. Spanish is the most widely taught language in the country after English. Although the United States has no formally designated "official languages," Spanish is formally recognized at the state level in various states in addition to English. In the U.S. state of New Mexico, 40% of the population speaks the language. It also has strong influence in metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio, New York City, Tampa, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Chicago, and in the twenty-first century the language has rapidly expanded in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Richmond, and Washington, DC. Spanish is the dominant spoken language in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory. With a total of 37 million Spanish speakers, according to US Census Bureau,^[70] the U.S. has the world's second-largest Spanish-speaking population.^[71] Spanish ranks second, behind English, as the language spoken most widely at home.^[72]

Africa[link]

In Africa, Spanish is official in Equatorial Guinea (co-official with French and Portuguese), as well as an official language of the African Union. In Equatorial Guinea, Spanish is the predominant language when native and non-native speakers (around 500,000 people) are counted, while Fang is the most spoken language by number of native speakers.^[73][74]

Today, in Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, an unknown number of Sahrawis are able to read and write in Spanish, and several thousands have received university education in foreign countries as part of aid packages (mainly in Cuba and Spain). Sahrawi Press Service, the official news service of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic of Western Sahara, has been available in Spanish since 2001,^[75] the official site of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is in Spanish^[76] and RASD TV, the official television channel of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, broadcasts in Spanish.^[77] The Sahara Film Festival, Western Sahara's only film festival, mainly shows Spanish-language films. Spanish is used to document Sahrawi poetry and oral traditions and has also be used in Sahrawi literature.^[78] Despite Spanish having been used by the Sahrawi people for over a century due to Western Sahara's history as a former Spanish colony, the Cervantes Institute has denied support and Spanish-language education to Sahrawis in Western Sahara and the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria.^[79] A group of Sahrawi poets known as Generación de la Amistad saharaui produces Sahrawi literature in Spanish.^[80]

Spanish is also spoken in the Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta (75,241) and Melilla (73,460) in continental North Africa, and in the autonomous community of the Canary Islands (2,117,519), a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa. Within Northern Morocco, a former Franco-Spanish protectorate that is also geographically close to Spain, approximately 20,000 people speak Spanish as a second language.^[81] It is spoken by some communities of Angola, because of the Cuban influence from the Cold War, and in South Sudan among South Sudanese natives that relocated to Cuba during the Sudanese wars and returned in time for their country's independence.^[82]

Asia-Pacific[link]

Spanish was used by the colonial governments and the educated classes in the former Spanish East Indies, namely the Philippines, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. From 1565 to 1973 it was an official language of the Philippines. Up to 1899 it was the language of government, trade and education, and spoken as a first language by Spaniards and educated Filipinos. In the mid-nineteenth century the colonial government set up a free public school system with Spanish as the medium of instruction. This increased the use of Spanish throughout the islands and led to a class of Spanish-speaking intellectuals called the Ilustrados. Although Spanish never became the language of a majority of the population,^[83] Philippine literature and press primarily used Spanish up to the 1940s. It continued as an official language until the change of Constitution in 1973. Following the U.S. occupation and administration of the islands in 1899, the American government increasingly imposed English, especially after the 1920s. The US authorities conducted a campaign of introducing English as the medium of instruction in schools, universities and public spaces, and prohibited the use of Spanish in media and educational institutions.

After the country became independent in 1946, Spanish remained an official language along with English and Tagalog-based Filipino. However, the language lost its official status in 1973 during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos. In 2007 the Arroyo administration announced that it would pass legislation to reintroduce Spanish in the Philippine education system. In 2010 a Memorandum was signed between Spanish and Philippine authorities to cooperate in implementing this decree. Today, Radio Manila broadcasts daily in Spanish. Worthy of mention is the Chavacano, a Spanish-Philippine pidgin, spoken by 600,000 people both in the Philippines and Sabah.

The local languages of the Philippines retain much Spanish influence, with many words being derived from Spanish from Spain and Mexican Spanish, due to the control of the islands by Spain through Mexico City until 1821, and directly from Madrid until 1898.^[84]

Among the countries and territories in Oceania, Spanish is also spoken in Easter Island, a territorial possession of Chile. The U.S. Territories of Guam and Northern Marianas, and the independent states of Palau, Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia all once had majority Spanish speakers, since the Marianas and the Caroline Islands were Spanish colonial possessions until the late nineteenth century (see Spanish-American War), but Spanish is no longer used by the masses but there are still native and second-language speakers. It also exists as an influence on the local native languages and is spoken by Hispanic American resident populations.

Antarctica[link]

The Antarctic Treaty regulates international relations with respect to Antarctica. Argentina and Chile, both Spanish-speaking countries, claim territories according to this treaty. The Argentine Antarctica sector had a winter population of 169 in 1999, and in the Chilean Antarctic Territory, according to the national census of 2002, the population was 130 (115 male, 15 female).^[85]

Spanish speakers by country[link]

The following table shows the number of Spanish speakers in some 70 countries.

Country	Population[86]	Spanish as a native language speakers[87][88][89][90][91]	Bilingual and as a second language speakers (in countries where Spanish is official)[92][93] or as a foreign language (where it is not official)[94]	Spanish speakers as percentage of population[95]	Total number of Spanish speakers
Mexico	116,147,000[96][97]	107,668,269[98]	6,736,526	98.5%[95]	114,404,795
United States	313,640,000[99]	36,995,602[100]	13,004,398	15.9%	50,000,000[101][102][103][104][105][106][107]
Spain	47,212,990[108]	42,019,561[109]	4,646,895	98.8%[95]	46,646,434
Colombia	46,535,000[110]	46,035,000[111]	130,080	99.2%[95]	46,162,720
Argentina	41,119,000[112][113]	36,552,109[114]	4,321,488	99.4%[95]	40,872,286
Venezuela	29,821,000[115]	28,744,047[116]	753,397	98.8%[95]	29,463,148
Peru	30,135,875[117]	25,344,271[118]	744,942	86.6%[95]	26,097,668
Chile	17,402,630[119]	17,153,127[120]	85,914	99.3%[95]	17,280,812
Ecuador	14,865,000[121]	12,466,200[122]	2,126,986	98.1%[95]	14,582,565
Guatemala	15,073,375[123]	9,044,025[124]	3,503,591	86.4%[95]	13,023,396
Cuba	11,235,863[125]	11,235,863[126]		99.4%[95]	11,168,448
Dominican Republic	10,225,000[125]	10,006,500[127]	177,600	99.6%[95]	10,184,100
Bolivia	10,426,154[128]	6,047,169[129]	3,117,420	87.9%[95]	9,164,589
Honduras	8,215,313[130]	8,007,563[131]	125,597	99.0%[95]	8,133,160
El Salvador	6,183,002[132]	6,168,902[133]		99.7%[95]	6,164,453
France	65,821,885[134]	440,106[135]	5,721,380	9.4%	6,161,486[92]
Nicaragua	5,822,000[125]	5,331,876[136]	315,464	97.0%[95]	5,647,340
Morocco	31,759,997[137]	20,000[138]	5,480,000	17.32%	5,500,000[139][140]
Brazil	190,732,694[141]	460,018[142][143]	5,000,000[144]	2.86%	5,460,018
Costa Rica	4,615,646[145]	4,530,228[146]	48,493	99.2%[95]	4,578,721
Paraguay	6,337,127[147]	3,612,162[148]	446,145	69.5%[95]	4,404,303
Puerto Rico	3,998,000[125]	3,802,098[149]	147,926	98.8%[95]	3,950,024
United Kingdom	62,041,708[150]	184,867[151]	3,737,633	6.4%	3,922,500[92]
Uruguay	3,372,000[125]	3,221,800[152]	113,108	98.9%[95]	3,334,908
Panama	3,508,000[125]	3,006,957[153]	258,991	93.1%[95]	3,265,948
Philippines	94,013,200[154]	2,930[155]	3,013,843	3.2%	3,016,773[156][157][158][159][160][161][162][163]
Germany	81,802,000[164]	178,976[165]	2,527,996	3.3%	2,706,972[92]
Italy	60,605,053[166]	422,249[167]	1,968,320	3.5%	1,635,976[92]
Equatorial Guinea	1,170,308[168]	1,683[169]	1,057,446	90.5%[95][170]	1,059,129
Canada	34,605,346[171]	909,000[172][173][174]	92,853[94]	2.9%	1,001,853
Portugal	10,636,888[175]	9,570[176]	727,282	6.9%	737,026[92]
Netherlands	16,665,900[177]	59,578[178]	622,516	4.1%	682,094[92]
Belgium	10,918,405[179]	85,990[180]	515,939	5.5%	601,929[92]
Romania	22,246,862		544,531	2.4%	544,531[92]
Sweden	9,045,389	101,472[181]	442,601	6%	544,073[92]
Australia	21,007,310	106,517[182]	374,571[183]	2.3%	481,088[94]
Poland	38,500,696		316,104	0.8%	316,104[92]
Austria	8,205,533		267,177	3.3%	267,177[92]
Ivory Coast	20,179,602		235,806 [94]	1.2%	235,806
Algeria	33,769,669		223,000[184]	0.7%	223,379
Denmark	5,484,723		219,003	4%	219,003[92]
Israel	7,112,359	130,000[185]	45,231	2.5%	175,231[186]
Japan	127,288,419	78,952[187]	60,000[94]	0.1%	138,952
Switzerland	7,581,520	123,000[188]	14,420	1.7%[189]	137,420
Bulgaria	7,262,675		133,910	1.8%	133,910[92]
Belize	301,270	106,795[190]	21,848	42.7%	128,643[190]
Netherlands Antilles	223,652	10,699	114,835	56.1%	125,534
Ireland	4,156,119		123,591	3%	123,591[92]
Senegal	12,853,259		101,455[94]	0.8%	101,455
Greece	10,722,816		86,742	0.8%	86,742[92]
Finland	5,244,749		85,586	1.6%	85,586[92]
Hungary	9,930,915		85,034	0.9%	85,034[92]
Aruba	101,484[191]	6,800	68,602	75.3%	75,402[192]
Croatia	4,491,543		73,656	1.6%	73,656[92]
Trinidad and Tobago	1,317,714[193]	4,100[194]	61,786	5%[195]	65,886
Andorra	84,484	29,907[196]	25,356	68.7%[197]	58,040
Slovakia	5,455,407		43,164	0.8%	43,164[92]
Norway	4,644,457	12,573	23,677	0.8%	36,250[92]
Russia	140,702,094	3,320	20,000[198]	0.01%	23,320
China	1,339,724,852[199]	3,055[200]	20,000[201]	0.002%	23,055
New Zealand	4,173,460	21,645[202]		0.5%	21,645
Guam	154,805		19,092	12.3%	19,092[203]
US Virgin Islands	108,612	16,788		15.5%	16,788
Lithuania	3,565,205		13,943	0.4%	13,943[92]
Gibraltar	27,967	13,857		49.5%	13,857
Turkey	73,722,988[204]	1,134[205]	12,346[206]	0.031%	13,480
Cyprus	792,604			1.4%	11,044[92]
Jamaica	2,804,322	8,000		0.3%	8,000
Luxembourg	486,006	3,000	4,344	1.5%	7,344[92]
Malta	403,532	6,458		1.6%	6,458[92]
Western Sahara	513,000[86]	n.a.[207]	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.
Other immigrants in the E.U.		906,816[208]
Other Spanish students					4,861,027[209]
Total native speakers in the world + bilingual and as a second language where Spanish is official:	7,000,000,000 (Total World Population)[210]	431,330,859 [1]	30,578,092	6.6%	462,212,669 [211]
Total with Spanish speakers as a foreign language:			78,693,433	7.29%	510,328,010 [4][212]