Biggest Cities by Language

For each language, name the most populous city where that language is the most commonly spoken at home.

Based on urban area populations, according to citypopulation.de, 2026

For French, we accept two answers. Read comments for more info.

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Last updated: March 13, 2026

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First submitted	May 9, 2011
Times taken	245,923
Average score	70.8%
Rating	4.96

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Language	Population	City
Cantonese	73.6 m	Guangzhou
Wu	42.3 m	Shanghai
Japanese	41.3 m	Tokyo
Hindi	36.9 m	Delhi
Marathi	28.1 m	Mumbai
Tagalog	27.1 m	Manila
Spanish	25.6 m	Mexico City
Korean	25.4 m	Seoul
Bengali	23.7 m	Dhaka
Arabic	23.2 m	Cairo
Portuguese	22.7 m	São Paulo
English	22.6 m	New York City
Yoruba	21.4 m	Lagos
Mandarin	21.8 m	Beijing
Russian	19.1 m	Moscow
Persian	17.2 m	Tehran
French	16.9 m / 11.6 m	Kinshasa / Paris
Turkish	16.2 m	Istanbul
Vietnamese	14.7 m	Ho Chi Minh City
Tamil	13.3 m	Chennai
Gujarati	10.2 m	Ahmedabad
Italian	6.55 m	Milan
Hebrew	3.05 m	Tel Aviv
Serbo-Croatian	1.43 m	Belgrade

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107 Recent Comments

+55

Level ∞

Apr 3, 2023

For French, I am 95% sure the correct answer is Paris. My assumption is that, in Kinshasa, many more people speak Lingala (or other indigenous languages) at home than speak French.

But the DRC is a very poor country and there is no accurate data.

So I will allow Kinshasa even though its almost certainly not correct.

Level 54

Oct 6, 2015

20 out of 24. I kept typing in Hong Kong; I did not think that guagzhou had such a big population. But the way what is the difference between Wu and Mandarin

Level 54

Oct 6, 2015

Thought that Jerusalem was bigger than tel aviv

Level 8

Apr 1, 2026

Mais Tel-Aviv est composée à majorité d'israéliens parlant hébreu, or ce n'est pas le cas de Jérusalem-Est, la ville entière comptant donc un certain pourcentage d'arabophones (entre autres).

Level 80

Aug 3, 2016

Difference between Wu and Mandarin is that they're different languages. 'Hello' in Mandarin is 'nihao', in Wu it is 'nong ho'. The number 10 in Mandarin is 'shi', in Wu it is 'sat'.

+12

Level 43

Jul 19, 2018

Although China we refer to regional differences as dialects, or 'fangyan'. Supposedly there are seven major dialects, including Wu and Cantonese. Putonghua or Mandarin is the 'official' Chinese language and it is based on the Beijing dialect. Some linguists consider the dialects as separate languages, some don't. There might as well be thousands of languages in China, as in many cases, even different regions in the same city have dialects that are incomprehensible to each other.

Level 58

Apr 27, 2026

No linguists consider them dialects of the same language. Many chinese people do, and the government does, but no scientists do

Level 56

Oct 21, 2020

In linguistics, the various languages in China are different languages, not dialects. In Chinese, people and the government tend to call them dialects. The rule is that if they are not mutually intelligible, they are different languages. Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible; neither are Mandarin and Wu.

Level 65

Apr 30, 2023

I don’t think Dialects and Languages are mutually exclusive. I think that the distinction is negligible because the Chinese languages are clearly very similar, and yet also very clearly not mutually intelligible. Much like everything, it is a spectrum and where you draw the line is arbitrary.

Level 50

Mar 19, 2025

The difference between dialects and languages is mostly dependent on what the speakers consider it to be. For example, Arabic people consider themselves to all speak the same language despite not being mutually intelligible. Scandinavians consider all their languages to be seperate despite being mutually intelligible.

Level 71

Apr 25, 2026

Maybe mutually intelligible when written. Spoken Danish is completely unintelligible.

Level 25

Jan 9, 2026

bro just think about it Guangzhou was the largest central city of Guangdong providence in mainland China, which got billions of people, who certainly gonna have millions of population, while Hongkong was a special administrative region, which have high density but small place, and have more strick immigration rules.

Level 96

Oct 7, 2015

Guangzhou does not have that large of a population, you can't just include other cities like Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou into Guangzhou and even if you did, Shenzhen is a city where you speak mandarin due to the fact that the majority of the population have migrated from other provinces

Level 71

Mar 2, 2025

You're right,in China nobody thinks Shenzhen is a part of Guangzhou.But even without Shenzhen and Dongguan and Foshan,Guangzhou is still a bigger city than Hong Kong.

Level 14

Oct 8, 2015

Now Ankara is turkey's capital

+20

Level 63

Feb 2, 2016

Your point is? The quiz is asking for the biggest cities where a language is most commonly spoken and Istanbul has thrice as many people as Ankara.

Level 71

Apr 16, 2016

Missed just Lagos and Ahmedabad, got all others however.

Level 59

Nov 9, 2016

I knew sau Paulo. just i forgotten it's spelling

Level 30

Apr 2, 2017

sao paulo

Level 25

Jan 9, 2026

I got San paulo

Level 69

Jun 14, 2017

Missed Gujarati but got everything else. What a fun quiz!

Level 50

Jul 31, 2017

One of the funnest quizzes I've taken on jetpunk!

Level 53

Dec 27, 2017

Does Kolkata have a larger metro population than Dhaka?

Level 39

Dec 29, 2017

Is Dhaka (at 18 million) not larger than Kolkata?

Level ∞

Feb 2, 2018

It is now, yes. The quiz has been updated.

Level 71

Jan 23, 2018

who else had no clue what Gujarati is lol

Level ∞

Feb 2, 2018

Gandhi's native language

Level 55

Jul 19, 2020

Gujaratis form a huge chunk of the expat population in US too!

Level 25

Jan 9, 2026

the language mostly spoken on the small peninsula region Gujarat on west India

Level 63

Apr 9, 2018

According to English Wikipedia, urban Kinshasa has more inhabitants than urban Paris, maybe check on some other sources, too.

Level ∞

Apr 10, 2018

While French is a popular second language in the D.R. Congo only a very small percentage of Congolese speak it natively.

Level ∞

Apr 3, 2023

Update 2023: It's impossible to find good data. I think that Lingala is probably the most commonly-spoken native language in Kinshasa but I can't confirm. Kinshasa will be accepted now.

Level 74

Jul 19, 2018

Isn't Shenzhen included in the numbers for Guangzhou? In that case, Shenzhen should be an acceptable answer.

Level 40

May 29, 2024

No because Shenzhen is a new city that atrracts immigrants from all over China, and as a result very few people speak Cantonese at home. They mostly speak Mandarin or other Chinese dialects.

Level 25

Jan 9, 2026

and Shenzhen and Guangzhou are two separate cities

Level 50

Jul 19, 2018

Idk if someone has mentioned it before, but Rome should be bigger than Milan today (even with urban area around it). See Wikipedia, etc.

Level 49

Jul 19, 2018

serbo-croatian does NOT exist. It existed in Yugoslavia times, in a political way. Same as Czechoslovakian. But they were separated languages. But political or not. It does not ecist.

Level 79

Jul 20, 2018

Sometimes they replace a few words and insist it's a new language because of politics.

Level ∞

Oct 10, 2020

It's a total farce. Apparently, they even hire "translators" to convert between the two "languages", which of course sound almost exactly the same.

Level 76

Mar 18, 2020

A language does not cease to exist when countries split or are put together. (Instantly I mean, ofcourse it can change after a couple centuries). Look at belgium for instance. they speak french and dutch

Level 35

Jul 20, 2018

Accept Beograd for Belgrade?

Level 40

Jul 20, 2018

Jerusalem has more hebrew speakers than Tel Aviv

Level 79

Jul 23, 2018

I think this is false if you consider the urban area. But more importantly this isn't based on the cities with the largest number of speakers of each language, it's about naming the biggest cities where each language is spoken more than any other language in those cities.

Level 44

Mar 8, 2019

I never knew Guangzhou had so many people!

I have also never heard of the language "Yoruba"...hehehe...

And for Hebrew I typed in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Amman, Baghdad,...I am so untalented.

For Vietnamese I tried Phnom Penh, and for all those languages like Marathi, Tamil or Gujarati I just tried all the Hindi cities I know...Still got all of them...but #facepalm

Level 78

Mar 11, 2019

Fun but easy

Level 70

Mar 21, 2019

Why no German?

Level 25

Jan 9, 2026

too less speaker population I guess

Level 51

Aug 6, 2019

Didn’t Kinshasa’s population pass Paris’ (although I assume there is still more French spoken in Paris)?

Level 68

Nov 20, 2019

Kinshasa also has a plethora of native languages to account for, of which Paris has no dire need to worry.

Level 74

Nov 4, 2019

I remembered at the end what hebrew was

Level 68

Dec 29, 2019

EZ 4 ME (good quiz, hope to see more like these)

Level 58

Jan 3, 2020

Needs an update. Kinshasa now has more inhabitants than Paris.

Level ∞

Oct 10, 2020

While French is a popular second language in the D.R. Congo only a very small percentage of Congolese speak it natively.

Level 56

Oct 21, 2020

Have you been to Kinshasa .... There is no way a majority of people living there speak French, and certainly not French at home as their usual language of communication. Yes, because of colonialism, it is an official language there, but that does not mean many or most people use it much.

Level 16

May 14, 2020

Very interesting quiz!

Level 49

Jul 8, 2020

fun

Level 61

Nov 15, 2020

WOW i did a lot better than i thought

Level 70

Nov 15, 2020

Excellent quiz, loved it.

Level 65

Nov 15, 2020

I still find the Wu thing quite surprising. I lived for half a year in Shanghai and encountered a single Wu speaker. I don't know what people do at their homes, but on the street Wu is almost non-existent (from my laowai perspective, of course).

Level 64

Nov 15, 2020

Bengali is wrong, the most populous city is Kolkata, not Dhaka!

Level 49

Nov 16, 2020

Kolkata is 14 million, Dhaka is close to 20 million. So, no, it's not wrong.

Level 61

Nov 18, 2020

Paris, 11.4 million?? I didn't even try it.

Level 56

Dec 23, 2020

Fun quiz, but a bit too easy without a yellow bar, I accidentally got Ahmadabad and Chennai, just because I was guessing for other Indian languages

Level 78

Jan 26, 2022

Wouldn't you have guessed them either way, if not then later?

Level 17

Apr 7, 2021

Dutch?

Level 43

May 19, 2021

Not gonna lie, the Italian and the Cantonese one confused me. I was surprised that Milan had more Italian speakers than Rome and Venice. As for the Cantonese one, I thought it was commonly spoken in South-East Asia. By the way I'm currently living in India so the Indian cities were quite easy for me lol.

Level 69

Apr 15, 2024

Rome is the more populous city but Milan has a slightly more populous metro area

Level 67

May 22, 2021

Easy!!

Level 25

Aug 11, 2021

Only missed Ahmedabad, the rest I got it perfect. I love this quizes

Level 47

Jan 7, 2022

How about German?

Level 60

Jan 23, 2022

I do not think that Marathi is not the most commonly spoken language of Mumbai.

According to this wikipedia article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai,

Marathi is spoken by 32.2% of the population, Hindi by 25.9% of population and Urdu by 11.7%. But Hindi and Urdu in spoken form (as spoken language is the criterion for this quiz) are the same language often described by the name 'Hindustani' which takes it's total to 37.6%, more than Marathi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_language

Level 78

Jan 26, 2022

It is though. Also, Urdu is a Pakistani language more than its Indian.

Source: born and bought up in Mumbai.

Level 60

Feb 1, 2022

1. Being born and brought up in Mumbai is neither a source nor does it give you a mathematical answer on which language is spoken more at home when the numbers are so close. Also I have lived in Mumbai for 10 years but it does not change the answer at all

2. Urdu being a "Pakistani language" is neither correct not does it bring any value to this discussion

Level 23

Dec 3, 2023

Hindi and Urdu are not the same language. They have substantial vocabulary and grammatical differences. Just because they sound similar doesn't mean they are to be considered one. Also, the official language of Mumbai is Marathi. So, either way Marathi comes first..

Level 60

Jan 29, 2024

They have differences in the formal register and not in the language commonly spoken at home. The difference is in the script but so is the case between Serbo Croatian "langauges".

Being official also does not change anything

Level 78

Jan 26, 2022

As someone whose first language is Gujarati, it makes me happy to see so many people getting stumped by it.

Level 49

Apr 6, 2022

Lol, who wouldn't if they were put in the same situation.

Level 64

Apr 25, 2026

same! love the amd rep

Level 49

Apr 6, 2022

Check your sources again, even though it is better for integrity to be more conservative with your numbers citypopulation.de is quite inaccurate messing up on countries by giving them less or more than they have. In my opinion, put more research into what source you use or just average between two sources (although it would be more work). I love your quizzes and I just want to give one piece of insight so you are aware. Don't take this harshly but not lightly either! : )

Level 52

Apr 26, 2022

Im pretty sure Kinshasa has more people than Paris and they are both french cities? Correct me if Im wrong with proof.

Level 53

Jun 6, 2022

German?!?

Level 42

Jun 10, 2022

I actually tried to type Southern American megacities on the Spanish one and went totally blank on Mexico City:(

Level 46

Aug 6, 2022

First Try 100%. I loved it keep up the nice and quick quizzes

Level 52

Nov 29, 2022

Why do I feel so smart getting Ahmedabad on accident?

Level 62

May 12, 2023

Milan, not Rome?

Level 88

May 12, 2023

Very fun.

Level 41

May 12, 2023

German missing...

Level 79

May 12, 2023

100%, 1:24

Level 30

May 13, 2023

Shanghainese here, saying Wu is Shanghai's main language is like saying Irish is Dublin's main language. It just isn't.

Level 31

Jun 23, 2023

where did you get the numbers? new york city doesn't even have 10 million let alone 20 million

Level 53

Oct 1, 2023

its urban area and nyc's urban area is massive

Level 57

Dec 7, 2023

according to google Rome has a larger population than Milan so I'm confused as to why Milan is the answer... am I being stupid

Level ∞

Mar 13, 2026

Milan has a much larger urban population than Rome and the difference grows larger each year.

Level 56

Mar 29, 2024

"Metro area" is a vague term, for example, London proper has more people than NYC proper yet it is commonly accepted the metro area has more people. However, if you drew a ring the size of the NYC metro area around London, the population would once again be higher.

Level 69

Apr 15, 2024

i ate that

Level 69

Oct 15, 2024

It will always be weird to me how the guangzhou area has about 1/4 of the US population

Level 17

Mar 16, 2025

I typed NYC and it counts as New York City!

Level 55

Apr 28, 2026

WHAT

Level 40

Jul 23, 2025

It would be nice if Bengaluru- Kannada was added cause it is the 3rd most populous city in India and has the 3rd most traffic in the world. It used to be a very green city and had lots of fresh air and was so lively and peaceful before it became the silicon city of asia.

Level 44

Oct 9, 2025

i suppose telugu should be here

Level 27

Dec 17, 2025

where indonesia?

Level 56

Apr 25, 2026

Why did I get 1 month of Jetpunk Premium after completing this quiz

Level 33

Apr 25, 2026

Why is Peking incorrect ? It's the correct English name.

Level 55

Apr 28, 2026

not anymore?

Level 59

Apr 26, 2026

I'm giving myself Delhi and Ho Chi Mann City. Spelling problems

Level 73

Apr 26, 2026

I would be very surprised if a majority of residents of the Shanghai metro area spoke Wu. I have lived there for a season and encountered ~no spoken or written Wu in any context, even among older people.

Guangzhou City *might* still have a Cantonese-speaking majority at home (though close to 100% bilingual), but I would bet that the majority language in the metro area (including Shenzhen etc.) is now Mandarin as well.

Level 57

Apr 27, 2026

Took some time to get Italian right. First tried Rome and then thought about some former colonies and didn't find one. So I tried inner Italian.