Spanish-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.

Spanish has about 600 million speakers, nearly 500 million of them native speakers: the world’s second most spoken native language.

Borderline cases

• United States (not counted): More than 40 million people speak Spanish at home, but Spanish has no official status at the federal level; an executive order made English the official language in 2025.
• Belize (not counted): About half of people speak Spanish, but English is the only official language.
• Equatorial Guinea (counted): A former Spanish colony: Spanish is official, with French and Portuguese, and is the main language of schools and government.
• Andorra (not counted): Spanish is widely spoken, but Catalan is the only official language.
• Philippines (not counted): Spanish was official until 1987; today very few people speak it.
• Puerto Rico (counted): Spanish and English are both official, but Puerto Rico is a US territory, not a country, so it is grey on the map and not part of the 20.

All 20 countries where Spanish is official

Europe (1): Spain

Africa (1): Equatorial Guinea

North America (9): Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama

South America (9): Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela

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