World Language Map

Quechuan languages map

42 Quechuan languages are on the map, most of them in Peru and Ecuador. It divides into 5 main branches, the largest being Quechua I (19 languages). The best-known members include South Bolivian Quechua, Cusco Quechua and Ayacucho Quechua. 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 Quechuan family at a glance

  • 42languages
  • 13drawn as areas
  • 29shown as points
  • 5main branches

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

Biggest Quechuan languages

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

  1. Where is South Bolivian Quechua spoken? (about 1.6 million speakers)
  2. Where is Cusco Quechua spoken? (about 1.5 million speakers)
  3. Where is Ayacucho Quechua spoken? (about 918,000 speakers)
  4. Where is Puno Quechua spoken? (about 500,000 speakers)
  5. Where is Santiago del Estero Quichua spoken? (about 170,000 speakers)
  6. Where is North Bolivian Quechua spoken? (about 116,000 speakers)
  7. Where is Huallaga Huánuco Quechua spoken? (about 40,000 speakers)
  8. Where is Colombian Inga spoken? (about 33,000 speakers)
  9. Where is Cajamarca Quechua spoken? (about 30,000 speakers)
  10. Where is Southern Pastaza Quechua spoken? (about 22,000 speakers)

Branches of Quechuan

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Quechua I (19)
  • Colombia-Ecuador Quechua (11)
  • Southern Quechua (8)
  • Cajamarca-Lambayeque Quechua (2)
  • San Martin-Amazonas Quechua (2)

Where Quechuan languages are spoken

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

All 42 Quechuan languages, A to Z

Questions about Quechuan languages

How many Quechuan languages are there?

42 living Quechuan languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 5 main branches, the biggest being Quechua I (19 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Quechuan languages spoken?

Peru (33), Ecuador (10), Bolivia (3), Argentina (2), Colombia (2) and Chile (1) have the most Quechuan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Quechuan languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: South Bolivian Quechua (about 1.6 million), Cusco Quechua (about 1.5 million) and Ayacucho Quechua (about 918,000). These figures differ between sources and years.

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