World Language Map

Austronesian languages map

1,226 Austronesian languages are on the map, most of them in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Philippines. It divides into 5 main branches, the largest being Malayo-Polynesian (1,212 languages). The best-known members include Standard Indonesian, Filipino and Javanese. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Austronesian family at a glance

  • 1,226languages
  • 801drawn as areas
  • 425shown as points
  • 5main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Austronesian alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Austronesian languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Standard Indonesian spoken? (about 199 million speakers)
  2. Where is Filipino spoken? (about 90 million speakers)
  3. Where is Javanese spoken? (about 68.3 million speakers)
  4. Where is Sundanese spoken? (about 32.4 million speakers)
  5. Where is Tagalog spoken? (about 23.6 million speakers)
  6. Where is Cebuano spoken? (about 15.9 million speakers)
  7. Where is Madurese spoken? (about 15 million speakers)
  8. Where is Iloko spoken? (about 9.1 million speakers)
  9. Where is Hiligaynon spoken? (about 8.2 million speakers)
  10. Where is Minangkabau spoken? (about 5.5 million speakers)

Branches of Austronesian

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Malayo-Polynesian (1,212)
  • Tsouic (3)
  • East Formosan (3)
  • Northwest Formosan (2)
  • Atayalic (2)

Where Austronesian languages are spoken

Countries with the most Austronesian languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 1,226 Austronesian languages, A to Z

Questions about Austronesian languages

How many Austronesian languages are there?

1,226 living Austronesian languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 5 main branches, the biggest being Malayo-Polynesian (1,212 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Austronesian languages spoken?

Indonesia (446), Papua New Guinea (227), Philippines (168), Vanuatu (114), Malaysia (105) and Solomon Islands (65) have the most Austronesian languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Austronesian languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Standard Indonesian (about 199 million), Filipino (about 90 million) and Javanese (about 68.3 million). These figures differ between sources and years.

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