World Language Map

Sino-Tibetan languages map

496 Sino-Tibetan languages are on the map, most of them in China, India and Myanmar. It divides into 17 main branches, the largest being Burmo-Qiangic (157 languages). The best-known members include Mandarin Chinese, Wu Chinese and Yue Chinese. 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 Sino-Tibetan family at a glance

  • 496languages
  • 248drawn as areas
  • 248shown as points
  • 17main branches

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

Biggest Sino-Tibetan languages

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

  1. Where is Mandarin Chinese spoken? (about 918 million speakers)
  2. Where is Wu Chinese spoken? (about 81.4 million speakers)
  3. Where is Yue Chinese spoken? (about 73.1 million speakers)
  4. Where is Min Nan Chinese spoken? (about 50.1 million speakers)
  5. Where is Hakka Chinese spoken? (about 48.2 million speakers)
  6. Where is Jinyu Chinese spoken? (about 46.9 million speakers)
  7. Where is Xiang Chinese spoken? (about 37.3 million speakers)
  8. Where is Burmese spoken? (about 32.9 million speakers)
  9. Where is Gan Chinese spoken? (about 22.1 million speakers)
  10. Where is Min Bei Chinese spoken? (about 11 million speakers)

Branches of Sino-Tibetan

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Burmo-Qiangic (157)
  • Kuki-Chin-Naga (93)
  • Bodic (80)
  • Himalayish (42)
  • Brahmaputran (36)
  • Sinitic (27)
  • Karenic (19)
  • Macro-Tani (12)
  • Kho-Bwa (7)
  • Macro-Bai (4)
  • Raji-Raute (3)
  • Nungish (3)
  • Dhimal-Lhokpu-Toto (3)
  • Digarish (2)
  • Kman-Meyor (2)
  • Miji (2)
  • Mruic (2)

Where Sino-Tibetan languages are spoken

Countries with the most Sino-Tibetan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 496 Sino-Tibetan languages, A to Z

Questions about Sino-Tibetan languages

How many Sino-Tibetan languages are there?

496 living Sino-Tibetan languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 17 main branches, the biggest being Burmo-Qiangic (157 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Sino-Tibetan languages spoken?

China (220), India (187), Myanmar (104), Nepal (81), Bhutan (27) and Bangladesh (25) have the most Sino-Tibetan languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Sino-Tibetan languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Mandarin Chinese (about 918 million), Wu Chinese (about 81.4 million) and Yue Chinese (about 73.1 million). These figures differ between sources and years.

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