World Language Map

Turkic languages map

39 Turkic languages are on the map, most of them in Russia, Kazakhstan and China. It divides into 2 main branches, the largest being Common Turkic (38 languages). The best-known members include Turkish, Northern Uzbek and Turkmen. 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 Turkic family at a glance

  • 39languages
  • 27drawn as areas
  • 12shown as points
  • 2main branches

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

Biggest Turkic languages

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

  1. Where is Turkish spoken? (about 82.2 million speakers)
  2. Where is Northern Uzbek spoken? (about 25.1 million speakers)
  3. Where is Turkmen spoken? (about 16 million speakers)
  4. Where is South Azerbaijani spoken? (about 13.8 million speakers)
  5. Where is Kazakh spoken? (about 12.9 million speakers)
  6. Where is Uighur spoken? (about 10.4 million speakers)
  7. Where is North Azerbaijani spoken? (about 9.2 million speakers)
  8. Where is Tatar spoken? (about 5.2 million speakers)
  9. Where is Kirghiz spoken? (about 4.6 million speakers)
  10. Where is Southern Uzbek spoken? (about 4.2 million speakers)

Branches of Turkic

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Common Turkic (38)
  • Bolgar (1)

Where Turkic languages are spoken

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

All 39 Turkic languages, A to Z

Questions about Turkic languages

How many Turkic languages are there?

39 living Turkic languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 2 main branches, the biggest being Common Turkic (38 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Turkic languages spoken?

Russia (21), Kazakhstan (13), China (12), Iran (10), Uzbekistan (9) and Turkey (8) have the most Turkic languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Turkic languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Turkish (about 82.2 million), Northern Uzbek (about 25.1 million) and Turkmen (about 16 million). These figures differ between sources and years.

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