German-Speaking Countries Quiz

Which countries count?

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.

German has about 130 million speakers, nearly 100 million of them native speakers in Central Europe.

Borderline cases

• Belgium (counted): German is one of three official languages, spoken by a small community in the east.
• Luxembourg (counted): German is official alongside Luxembourgish and French.
• Italy (not counted): German is co-official in South Tyrol, but only regionally.
• Namibia (not counted): German is still spoken by a small community and was official before independence, but English is the only official language today.

All 6 countries where German is official

Europe (6): Austria, Belgium, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland

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