The following is a list of countries where Spanish is an official language, plus several countries where
Spanish or any language closely related to it, is an important or significant language.
Official or national language
Spanish is the official language (either by law or de facto) in 20 sovereign states (including Equatorial Guinea, where it is official but not a native language), one dependent territory, and one partially recognized state, totaling around 442 million people.[1][2]
Primary or only official language
In the these countries and territories, Spanish is the main or mostly used language of communication of the vast majority of the population; official documents are written chiefly or solely in that language; and it is taught in schools and utilized as the primary medium of instruction as part of the official curriculum.
^In Spain, Spanish is the sole official language at the national level, while
Basque,
Catalan/
Valencian,
Aranese, and
Galician are co-official alongside Spanish in certain regions.
^In Ecuador, Spanish is the sole official language at the national level while the
Kichwa (Northern Quechua) and
Shuar languages hold co-official status in selected regions.
^In Bolivia, the national constitution recognizes Spanish and various
indigenous languages of Bolivia as official at the national level, though Spanish is predominant nationwide.
^In Paraguay, Spanish and the indigenous
Guaraní are recognized as co-official at the national level and both are widely used in society.
^In Equatorial Guinea, the Spanish,
French, and
Portuguese languages all hold official status at the national level, though Spanish is the primary language in the public sphere while
Fang,
Bube,
Kombe, and other
Bantu languages, as well as an English-based creole, are used at home and family settings.
Though not an official language at the national level, Spanish is regularly spoken by significant populations throughout these countries. Public services, education, and information are widely available in Spanish, as are various forms of printed and broadcast media.
Spanish is not the official language of
Andorra but holds a special status in some fields, namely in education and business.[28] Public education in Spanish (following the
Spanish public education system) is offered in the country. It is the second-most spoken language in the country, with nearly half of the population conversant in Spanish, rivaling the official
Catalan in both native and total speaker numbers.[29] Spanish has also emerged as the lingua franca between various linguistic groups and in the commercial sector, which has triggered government efforts to promote the more general and universal use of Catalan.[30] In 2008, 30.8% of students were enrolled in the Spanish education system.[31]
Spanish has no official recognition in the
Central American nation of
Belize, a
Commonwealth of Nations member state where English is the official national language. However, the country shares land borders with Spanish-speaking Mexico and Guatemala and, per the 2010 Belizean census, Spanish is spoken by a sizable portion of the population; 30% claim Spanish as a mother tongue and about 50% of the population has a working knowledge of the language.[32] The Census Report 2010 reported that 56.6% of Belizeans spoke Spanish.[27]
Spanish is not official in the
British Overseas Territory of
Gibraltar, which shares its only land border with Spain. Nevertheless, Spanish is compulsory for secondary school students and a mixture of Spanish and English called
Llanito is colloquially spoken among most inhabitants. Recent trends since the 2000s have found, however, that Spanish proficiency and usage among younger generations is declining as members of these groups tend to use English exclusively.[33][34]
Spanish has been spoken in the
United States for several centuries in the
Southwest and
Florida, which were all once part of
New Spain. However, today only a minority of Spanish speakers in the U.S. trace their language back to those times; the overwhelming majority of speakers come from recent immigration. Only in northern
New Mexico and southern
Colorado there have been Spanish-speaking communities uninterruptedly since colonial times.[35]
Spanish is the most studied foreign language in United States schools and is spoken as a native tongue by 41 million people, plus an additional 11 million fluent second-language speakers.[36] Though not official, Spanish has a special status in the American state of
New Mexico.[37] With almost 60 million native speakers and second language speakers, the United States now has the second-largest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico.[38] Spanish is increasingly used alongside English nationwide in business and politics. Media in Spanish has also become influential outside of native Hispanophone circles.[39][40] In the United States, the language is regulated by the
North American Academy of the Spanish Language.
Spanish was the official language of the
Philippines from the beginning of the
Hispanic period in 1565 and through independence until a constitutional change in 1973. However,
PresidentFerdinand Marcos had Spanish redesignated as an official language under Presidential Decree No. 156, dated 15 March 1973 and Spanish remained official until 1987, when it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language.[41] Additionally, the
present Philippine Constitution, in its Article XIV,[42] stipulates that the
Government shall provide the people of the Philippines with a Spanish-language translation of the Constitution.[43] The article was invoked and applied when, in 2015, Senator
Loren Legarda introduced a
Senate Bill requesting an act intended to provide translations of the Philippine Constitution into several specific languages, including Spanish.[44] The bill was accepted and approved.[45] Beyond the Constitution, the Philippine
Department of Education issued DECS Order No. 33 in 1987, requiring schools to include Spanish and Arabic when offering foreign language courses, pointing out the relevance of both languages "in the development of Philippine history and culture".[46]
On 8 August 2007,
PresidentGloria Macapagal Arroyo announced that the Philippine government asked for help from the Spanish Government in her plan to reintroduce Spanish as a required subject in the Philippine school system.[47] By 2012, the language was a compulsory subject at only a very select number of secondary schools.[48] Despite government promotion of Spanish, only about 400,000 people, which accounts for under 0.5% of the population, can speak Spanish at least proficiently.[49][50]
While Spanish is designated as an optional government language in the
Philippines, its usage is very limited and not present in everyday life. Despite this,
Tagalog and other native Philippine languages incorporate a large number of Spanish loanwords, as a result of 300 years of Spanish influence. In the country, Spanish is regulated by the
Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language.
Chamorro is an
Austronesian language with many Spanish loanwords; some scholars have considered it a creole, but the most authoritative sources deny this.[57]
Judeo-Spanish (sometimes known as Ladino or other names) is a language derived from medieval Spanish; it is still spoken by some
Sephardi Jews, mainly in
Israel.[64]
^The
Constitution of Chile does not establish Spanish as an official language. However, Chilean legislation establishes that schools must teach students to communicate in the "
Castilian language" (
General Law on Education (Articles 29 and 30), Chile Library of Congress.)
^Constitution of Puerto RicoArchived 19 March 2015 at the
Wayback Machine, Art. 3, Section 5: It is mandatory to be able to read and write in either English or Spanish in order to be a member of the Legislative Assembly.
^Canfield, Delos Lincoln (1981). Spanish Pronunciation in the Americas. The University of Chicago Press. p. 80. The main nuclei of Spanish speech in the United States are northern New Mexico / southern Colorado, the border territories from California through Texas, the Florida peninsula, New York City, and other large cities of the Northeast and Midwest. Only one of these, the New Mexico / Colorado dialect area, has maintained linguistic continuity since colonial days, and its speech goes back to about 1600.
^Article XIV, Sec 7: For purposes of communication and instruction, the official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English. The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction therein. Spanish and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis.
^Article XIV, Sec 8: This Constitution shall be promulgated in Filipino and English and shall be translated into major regional languages, Arabic, and Spanish.
^"Tijdelijke wet officiële talen BES" (in Dutch). wetten.nl. Retrieved 24 October 2010. Artikel 2: De officiële talen zijn het Engels, het Nederlands en het Papiamento. (English: Article 2: The official languages are English, Dutch and Papiamento)