Key facts
- 6,722 living languages are on this map, counted using Glottolog.
- 211 language families, plus 103 isolates with no known relatives.
- Atlantic-Congo is the biggest family, with 1,367 languages.
- Papua New Guinea has more languages than any other country.
- Africa has the most languages of any part of the world.
- Mandarin Chinese has the highest speaker figure in the data.
- 60% of languages with a status are in some stage of decline.
- 24% of languages are spoken in more than one country.
- English is found in more countries than any other language.
- 40% of languages have no area map, so they appear as single points.
Every number below is worked out by a script from the data behind the map and is rebuilt whenever that data is updated, so nothing is typed in by hand. Each fact has its own link and a button to copy it with a citation. To see where any of these languages are spoken, open the world language map.
How many languages are there in the world?
This map counts 6,722 living languages. That is every language-level entry in Glottolog v5.3 (8,618), minus 1,023 extinct languages, 853 entries that are not ordinary spoken languages (sign languages, artificial languages and similar) and 20 with no known location. Other catalogues use different rules and reach different totals.
Show the numbers
| Language-level entries in Glottolog | 8,618 |
|---|---|
| Extinct (left out) | 1,023 |
| Not ordinary spoken languages (left out) | 853 |
| No known location (left out) | 20 |
| Living languages on this map | 6,722 |
The count
6,722 living languages are on this map, counted at the level Glottolog calls a language.
Where one language ends and another begins is partly a judgement call, so every total depends on the rules used.
8,618 language-level entries are listed in Glottolog v5.3 before anything is left out.
This includes languages that have died out and entries that are not everyday spoken languages.
1,023 extinct languages in Glottolog are left off the map, because it shows where languages are spoken today.
853 entries are left off because they are not ordinary spoken languages, such as sign languages, artificial languages and register entries.
Sign languages are real languages. They are left out because a map of areas does not suit them.
20 living languages are left off because they have neither a mapped area nor a position in Glottolog, so there is nowhere to put them.
237 countries and territories have at least one language on the map.
Names and codes
96% of the languages on the map (6,447) have an ISO 639-3 code, the international three-letter code for a language.
Some languages that Glottolog lists have no ISO code of their own.
5,782 languages have an English Wikipedia article, and each language page here links to it.
How many language families are there?
Glottolog sorts the languages on this map into 211 named families, plus 103 isolates, which are languages with no known relatives. A further 30 languages are not yet placed in any family. The biggest family, Atlantic-Congo, has 1,367 languages, about 20% of the total.
Show the numbers
| Atlantic-Congo | 1,367 |
|---|---|
| Austronesian | 1,226 |
| Sino-Tibetan | 496 |
| Indo-European | 485 |
| Afro-Asiatic | 332 |
| Nuclear Trans New Guinea | 315 |
| Otomanguean | 175 |
| Austroasiatic | 154 |
| Tai-Kadai | 91 |
| Pama-Nyungan | 80 |
Counting families
211 named language families are on this map.
Families are scientific hypotheses. Some links between languages are well proven and others are still debated.
103 languages are isolates, which means no relatives have been shown.
An isolate is not necessarily old or odd. The evidence to link it to another language has simply not been found.
30 languages have no family in Glottolog yet, usually because too little is known about them.
148 families have at least three languages and their own page and map here.
The biggest families
Atlantic-Congo has the most languages of any family: 1,367.
Austronesian is second, with 1,226 languages.
Sino-Tibetan is third, with 496 languages.
485 languages are in the Indo-European family, which includes Spanish, English and Hindi. By number of languages it is the 4th largest family.
Many well-known languages belong to it, but the number of languages is not the same as the number of speakers.
Isolates by country
Papua New Guinea has the most isolates of any country: 29.
An isolate in two countries is counted in both.
Which country has the most languages?
Papua New Guinea has the most languages of any country, with 864 on this map, about 13% of the world total. Indonesia comes next, then Nigeria. A language spoken in more than one country counts in each, so the country totals add up to more than the world total.
Show the numbers
| Papua New Guinea | 864 |
|---|---|
| Indonesia | 708 |
| Nigeria | 528 |
| India | 456 |
| China | 407 |
| Cameroon | 306 |
| Mexico | 283 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | 239 |
| Brazil | 180 |
| Philippines | 172 |
Language-rich countries
Papua New Guinea has the most languages of any country: 864.
A language that crosses a border counts in each country.
Indonesia is second, with 708 languages.
Nigeria is third, with 528 languages.
about 12,000 people for every language is the average in Papua New Guinea, going by its population of about 10 million.
Averages hide huge differences. Some of its languages have a great many speakers and others only a few.
Languages that cross borders
13 countries and territories have only one language on the map.
24% of languages (1,621) are spoken in more than one country.
Country lists are worked out from the mapped areas and from Glottolog and Unicode CLDR data.
English is found in the most countries: 146.
A language that spread through trade or empire can be found in many countries without being spoken by many people in each.
Which part of the world has the most languages?
A few languages span more than one macroarea and are not shown in these bars.
Show the numbers
| Africa | 2,118 |
|---|---|
| Papunesia | 2,076 |
| Eurasia | 1,539 |
| North America | 482 |
| South America | 372 |
| Australia | 128 |
Macroareas
Africa has the most languages of Glottolog's six macroareas: 2,118.
A macroarea is a large region that Glottolog uses to group languages. It does not follow country borders.
Papunesia is second, with 2,076 languages.
Papunesia is New Guinea and the Pacific islands, which hold many languages on a small area of land.
62% of all the languages on the map are in Africa and Papunesia together.
How many languages are endangered?
Glottolog gives an endangerment status to 6,691 of the languages on this map. Of those, 60% are threatened, shifting, moribund or nearly extinct, which means they are in some stage of decline. 709 are moribund or nearly extinct, so children are no longer learning them.
Show the numbers
| Not endangered | 2,688 |
|---|---|
| Threatened | 1,542 |
| Shifting | 1,752 |
| Moribund | 415 |
| Nearly extinct | 294 |
By status
2,688 languages are listed as not endangered (40% of those with a status).
Not endangered means it is still being passed on to children, not that it has many speakers.
1,542 languages are threatened: still spoken by all age groups, but with signs that speaker numbers are falling.
1,752 languages are shifting: the youngest speakers are adults, and children are growing up with another language.
415 languages are moribund: the youngest speakers are middle-aged or older.
294 languages are nearly extinct, with only a few elderly speakers left.
31 languages on the map have no endangerment status in Glottolog.
Where languages are declining
98% of languages with a status in Australia are in some stage of decline, the highest share of any macroarea.
Each status is a Glottolog judgement from published surveys, and the amount of study varies between regions.
39% of languages with a status in Africa are in some stage of decline, the lowest share of any macroarea.
Which language has the most speakers?
Mandarin Chinese has the highest speaker figure in the data: about 918 million first-language speakers (Ethnologue, 2019, via Wikidata). Speaker counts are approximate. Sources differ in the year they count and in who counts as a speaker, so treat the order as a guide.
Figures are approximate and come from Wikidata, with the source and year given on each language page.
Show the numbers
| Mandarin Chinese | 918,000,000 |
|---|---|
| Spanish | 485,000,000 |
| English | 379,007,140 |
| Hindi | 341,000,000 |
| Standard Arabic | 335,000,000 |
| Bengali | 300,000,000 |
| Portuguese | 254,300,000 |
| Standard Indonesian | 199,000,000 |
| Russian | 154,000,000 |
| Japanese | 128,000,000 |
Speaker figures
Mandarin Chinese has the highest speaker figure: about 918 million first-language speakers.
The order depends on whether you count first-language speakers only or everyone who speaks the language.
Spanish is second, with about 485 million first-language speakers.
English is third, with about 379 million first-language speakers.
English has the highest second-language figure: about 753.4 million speakers who learned it after their first language.
Second-language figures exist for only a minority of languages.
How well speakers are counted
1,581 languages (24%) have a speaker figure here.
Only figures that apply to the whole language are used, not counts for one country or region.
76% of languages (5,141) have no speaker figure on this map.
No figure does not mean no speakers. It means no usable figure was found.
about 26,000 speakers is the middle value: half of the languages with a figure have fewer speakers than this.
Languages without a figure are not included, so this is only a guide to the whole.
How much of the map is drawn as areas?
Show the numbers
| Eurasia | 850 |
|---|---|
| Africa | 648 |
| Papunesia | 628 |
| North America | 356 |
| Australia | 128 |
| South America | 104 |
Areas and points
4,008 languages (60%) are drawn as an area, taken from a published language atlas.
Areas are generalisations, and many of the atlases are decades old.
2,714 languages (40%) are shown as a single point, because no open area map covers them.
The point is the position Glottolog gives, not the full extent of where the language is spoken.
Eurasia has the most languages shown only as points: 850.
Where the areas come from
13 published language atlases supply the areas, digitised by the Glottography project.
Each area keeps the name and year of its atlas, which the map shows when you tap it.
3,790 areas come from the world atlas, Asher and Moseley 2007, which is used wherever no more detailed atlas covers a language.
218 areas were replaced or filled in by more detailed regional atlases.
A regional atlas is used only when its areas are not much smaller than those of the world atlas.
16 other atlases were considered and left out.
The reasons include coverage of the past rather than today, a non-commercial licence, and maps that do not show where a language is spoken.
About this data
Versions and dates
Glottolog v5.3 is the release that supplies the language names, families, codes, endangerment statuses and the positions of languages with no area.
A new Glottolog release can change the counts on this page.
13 October 2026 is the date the numbers on this page were last worked out.
6,692 languages have their own page, each with a map, a family tree path and a list of countries.
Languages with no family in Glottolog yet do not get a page.
What these numbers mean
A language count depends on the rules
Linguists do not agree on exactly where one language ends and another begins. Speakers who understand each other easily may be said to share a language, but history, politics and identity also play a part. This page follows Glottolog's rules, so a catalogue with different rules will give a different total.
Country totals overlap
A language that is spoken in more than one country counts in each of them. That is why the country figures add up to more than the world total.
Speaker figures are estimates
Counting speakers is hard. Sources use different years and different definitions, and many languages have no recent survey at all. Use the order of the biggest languages as a guide, and always check the source and year shown on each language page.
Areas are generalisations
A language area is a simplified shape from a published atlas, and many atlases are decades old. Areas overlap, cities are multilingual and people move. A language shown as a point has no open area map, which says nothing about how widely it is spoken.
Methodology
Language names, codes, families and endangerment statuses come from Glottolog v5.3 (data retrieved 13 October 2026). We keep living spoken languages at the language level and leave out extinct languages, sign languages, artificial languages and register entries, plus any living language with no mapped area and no position in Glottolog.
Areas come from the Glottography project's digitised atlases, with regional atlases used ahead of the world atlas where they fit. Languages by country use the mapped areas and Unicode CLDR territory data, and approximate speaker counts come from Wikidata. Small shares are shown to one decimal place and larger shares are rounded to whole numbers.
See data sources and licences for every dataset and how it is used, and the lists of languages, families and countries for the full tables behind these figures.
Cite this page
You are welcome to quote any number on this page. Please credit World Language Map and link to this page, so readers can check the figure and see how it was worked out. Every number has its own link and a Copy citation button.
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Frequently asked questions
How many languages are there in the world?
This map counts 6,722 living languages, taken from Glottolog v5.3. There is no single agreed number, because where one language ends and another begins is partly a judgement call. Other catalogues use different rules and give different totals.
Why do other websites give a different number?
Totals change with the rules. This page counts Glottolog's language-level entries, and leaves out extinct languages, sign languages, artificial languages and similar entries, as well as 20 living languages with no known location. A catalogue that keeps some of these, or splits and joins languages differently, will reach another total.
How many language families are there?
Glottolog gives 211 named families on this map, plus 103 isolates, which are languages with no known relatives. Families are scientific hypotheses, so the count can change as research finds, proves or rejects links between languages.
Which language family has the most languages?
Atlantic-Congo has the most, with 1,367 languages, followed by Austronesian with 1,226. A family with many languages does not always have many speakers, because some big families are made up of many small languages.
Where do these numbers come from?
Every number is worked out by a script from Glottolog v5.3 (names, families, statuses), the Glottography language atlases (areas), Unicode CLDR (languages by country) and Wikidata (approximate speaker counts). Nothing is typed in by hand. The data sources page lists every dataset and its licence.
Can I use these facts in my article, homework or presentation?
Yes. Quote any number you like and credit World Language Map with a link to this page. Each fact has a Copy citation button that copies the sentence with a link to that exact fact, and the whole list can be downloaded as a CSV file.