Countries by language
Countries by Official Language Quiz
One country at a time on the world map: is its official language English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese or another? Then explore the language map.
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How it works
A country counts when the language is an official national language: named in its constitution or laws (de jure), or, where the law names none, the language its national government works in (de facto). A language that is widely spoken but not official does not count, nor does one that is official only in a region. We use the same 197 countries as our other quizzes: the 193 UN members, Vatican City, Palestine, Kosovo and Taiwan. Territories such as Puerto Rico are grey on the map.
Many countries have more than one official language: Canada has English and French, Switzerland four languages, and South Africa twelve. Any one of a country’s official languages counts as the right answer, and its card lists them all.
Countries per language
- English: 59 · English-Speaking Countries quiz
- French: 26 · French-Speaking Countries quiz
- Spanish: 20 · Spanish-Speaking Countries quiz
- Portuguese: 9 · Portuguese-Speaking Countries quiz
- Arabic: 24 · Arabic-Speaking Countries quiz
- German: 6 · German-Speaking Countries quiz
- Dutch: 3 (Belgium, Netherlands, Suriname)
- Russian: 4 (Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia)
- Mandarin Chinese: 3 (China, Singapore, Taiwan)
- Swahili: 4 (Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda)
Sources
Official languages are checked against each country’s constitution and language laws, government sources and the CIA World Factbook, as of 2026.
Maps: official map data