About World Language Map
An interactive world language map. Tap anywhere on Earth to see every language spoken there, colour the map by language family, and look up where any of thousands of languages is spoken.
World Language Map is a free, single-purpose website. It is built to be useful on its own: you can explore the map, share a link to exactly what you are looking at, embed it on your own page or download an image of it. Everything is made from open data, and the credits are on the data sources page.
Who runs it
This site is run by Chris Barnes, a sole trader (England and Wales). It is one of a small family of map sites; you can find the others in the "More maps" list at the bottom of every page.
How accurate is it?
We show the data as its authors published it, and we try to be honest about how certain it is. Where something is a best guess, the map says so. If you spot a mistake in how we display or describe the data, please tell us.
How it is paid for
The site is free to use. It may show adverts, and it offers an optional email newsletter. We do not sell your personal data.
Why this site exists
Until recently, maps of where the world’s languages are spoken were locked in books or sold under paid licences. Glottography, a project led from the University of Zurich, has now digitised language atlases as open data. This site puts them on one map, so you can tap anywhere and see which languages are spoken there, and look up where any language is spoken.
How the map is made
Language areas come from 13 published atlases via Glottography. Names, families and the family tree come from Glottolog. Country shares come from Unicode CLDR, and speaker counts from Wikidata. Every figure is worked out by a script that runs the same way each time, and we do not add facts of our own. We are not linguists. The credits and licences are on the data sources page.
What the map does not show
Language areas are generalisations, many drawn decades ago, and they overlap. A city is shown inside many areas because people there speak many languages. Languages without an open area map appear as single points. Speaker numbers are approximate and come from sources that disagree. Where a language belongs, and where one language ends and another begins, is partly a matter of judgement, and some borders and names are political. We present the data as its sources give it and cite the atlas for every area.
Spotted a mistake?
Tell us through the contact page. Errors in the underlying records are best reported to the atlas authors or to Glottolog, and corrections there come through when we refresh the data.