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Top 10 Countries with the Most Spanish Speakers

Name the 10 countries that have the most speakers of Spanish as their mother tongue.
% is an estimate based on information from Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook
Total country population as of 19 August 2024. More info here.
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: August 19, 2024
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First submittedNovember 25, 2016
Times taken119,089
Average score90.0%
Rating4.96
4:00
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%
#
Country
94
123 m
Mexico
99
52.4 m
Colombia
13
45.4 m
United States
99
45.3 m
Argentina
81
38.8 m
Spain
%
#
Country
87
29.8 m
Peru
98
27.9 m
Venezuela
99
19.6 m
Chile
93
16.9 m
Ecuador
98
11.2 m
Dominican Republic
77 Comments
+55
Level 67
Nov 26, 2016
For some reason I went in thinking this was only countries where Spanish was the main language. Only at the end did I realize it wasn't a requirement and immediately realized the missing answer was the US.
+1
Level 67
May 25, 2022
same
+2
Level 61
Nov 10, 2022
Yeah, that made it interesting; I forgot them initially as well.
+18
Level 62
Nov 26, 2016
I forgot Ecuador. I even went through every country in south America but I just skipped right over it.
+3
Level 66
Oct 8, 2019
Same
+2
Level 77
Feb 20, 2020
I did the same, except for Peru. Idk how, but I forgot Peru
+7
Level 55
Oct 8, 2020
I was like " don't guess cuba it's not a colony of spain you mix it up with peru" and I didn't guess it :( 9/10 (but it is)
+1
Level 29
Nov 10, 2022
I somehow missed Argentina and Cuba 😅
+4
Level 55
Nov 28, 2016
Missed Ecuador
+13
Level 34
Nov 28, 2016
usa has more than spain, who wouldve thought?
+19
Level 63
Jan 17, 2017
The US-area close to Mexico is probably bigger than Spain and I presume so is the population.
+11
Level 52
Apr 15, 2017
And don't forget that there are a lot of separatists in Spain that have their own language.
+53
Level 85
Apr 18, 2017
And also a lot of non-separatists that have their own language.
+7
Level 48
Sep 8, 2019
Well yes, there are people in Spain who have a different mother language than Castilian Spanish, but they should count in these numbers because everyone in Spain speaks Castilian Spanish as well.
+4
Level 42
Sep 21, 2019
elgrancazador: read the caveat - native language only
+4
Level 59
Oct 3, 2020
Or look at the percentage, Spain only has 74%. It's kinda ironic, how the country that the language originate from has second lowest percentage of it's native speakers.
+3
Level 72
Aug 20, 2024
I'll add a reply 4 years later for those interested. Imo Spain should be counted as a whole. In fact, except for residents who grew up in other countries, Spanish could be considered mother language even to those that speak more Basque, Catalan, Galician or any other language or dialect, since I'm sure they learned Spanish from childhood too and master it perfectly, perhaps even more than those born in the US that didn't study it at school.

I'm myself a speaker of minority language within a large country (Venetian) and I've never spoken a word of Italian with my parents, yet of course I speak Italian as any other and it can be considered my mother language too.

Now, I know Basque for instance is different since it's taught in schools and it's co-official, but I refuse to believe that 99% of Basques can't speak Spanish at mother tongue level...

+1
Level 15
Sep 3, 2024
You´re totally right, everyone in Spain knows Castilian Spanish. Even in separatist regions is compulsory, at least, the subject "Castilian Language and Literature"
+4
Level 92
Sep 13, 2017
I was in Florida this year and almost everyone there speaks Spanish. When I was in a store or on a market and people started talking to me, it was always in Spanish first and when I didn't respond (no hablo español) they tried English second
+5
Level 55
Dec 13, 2021
I'm assuming you mean southern Florida. I haven't been there but I've heard that Southern Florida is very diverse with many people from all over but Spanish speaking people make up the main groups (Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Venezuelans) whereas in Northern Florida it's mainly English speaking Southerners. I've heard North Florida being called South Georgia because of how much more like Georgia it is compared to southern Florida.
+1
Level 87
Aug 19, 2024
North Florida is essentially Southeast Alabama, just with more heat and mosquitoes.
+7
Level 53
Nov 10, 2022
Theres a saying that the more north you go in Florida, the more Southern it gets.
+2
Level 82
Sep 7, 2022
~330 million, with ~20% Hispanic will amount to a significant number of Spanish speakers.
+3
Level 21
Nov 28, 2016
Cant believe i forgot cuba
+2
Level 8
Apr 15, 2017
Me too ... I thought the population was smaller. Still got 8/10 tho
+2
Level 71
Mar 15, 2017
Woah, I did it, but I wasnt expecting that Cuba was there :)
+1
Level 44
Apr 16, 2017
I can't believe I missed USA. 😩
+9
Level 76
Feb 23, 2019
I can
+7
Level 71
Nov 5, 2017
I think Guatemala has more Spanish speakers than Cuba. Cuba only has about 11 million people. Guatemala has about 16 million. And 93% of the people there speak Spanish. That is about 15 million people.
+8
Level ∞
Jul 25, 2019
93% speak Spanish but only 55% have Spanish as their mother tongue.

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

+2
Level 36
Jun 2, 2018
I got the U.S.A with 4 seconds to go.
+2
Level 73
Jan 15, 2019
the last one was hard, I think i tried every country with spanish speakers besides cuba
+1
Level 36
Aug 5, 2019
I would never have guessed the USA. I suppose that, as usual, you are not including territories. Therefore, Puerto Rico is out. Given that, how can the USA have more native Spanish speakers than Venezuela and Spain?
+2
Level 74
Aug 31, 2019
I think the percentage is more important to look at when comparing USA to Spain and Venezuela. The US is only 13% of the population as opposed to the 74% and 98% of Spain and Venezuela, respectively.
+1
Level 56
Aug 31, 2019
I'm pretty sure you messed up Venezuela and Peru. Peru's population has been growing steadily over 30 million, while Venezuelans are fleeing in the millions from the socialist regime in Venezuela. Around 600 thousand Venezuelans are in Peru alone (I live here, venezuelans everywhere).
+1
Level 53
Aug 31, 2019
Missed Venezuela
+9
Level 41
Aug 31, 2019
It's missing almost 10 million native speakers in Spain, just cause they are bilingual it doesn't mean that they aren't native Spanish speaker, nobody considers a Catalan or a Basque person to be non native speakers of the Spanish language...
+6
Level 64
Aug 31, 2019
four minutes seems very long for only ten answers
+2
Level 71
Sep 5, 2019
Yep. Especially for a quiz that's basically "Name the biggest countries in Latin America + the one that colonized them".
+2
Level 63
Oct 14, 2021
and USA
+2
Level 32
Dec 20, 2019
izi 1 minute
+2
Level 41
May 26, 2020
somehow i missed cuba, didn't think it would be on there.
+2
Level 24
Jun 5, 2021
Me too
+1
Level 27
Jun 8, 2021
Like, it is so weird that the Colombians outnumber the Spanish
+3
Level 58
Jun 15, 2021
In Spain 34? no, im from Spain and everyboyd in all the regions speak spanish. This quiz is not a reality
+2
Level 63
Oct 14, 2021
The reason 25% of the population may not be counted is because they aren't all native speakers. There may also be regions that have less or no Spanish speakers.
+4
Level 41
Nov 10, 2022
No, everyone in Spain speaks Spanish natively, there are bilingual regions, but everyone speaks Spanish.
+1
Level 61
Nov 17, 2021
Should be Bolivia instead of Cuba.
+3
Level 74
Nov 10, 2022
For many people in Bolivia the native language is Quechua or Aymara, not Spanish.
+2
Level 52
Aug 3, 2022
Spain has more than 45 mil speakers
+6
Level 74
Nov 10, 2022
Spain hosts a significant number of immigrants from Morocco, Moldova and Romania whose native language isn't Spanish. Also, Castellano (Spanish) isn't the native/mother tongue of Galicians, Basques and Catalans.
+1
Level 73
Aug 20, 2024
It is the native/mother tongue of most people in those regions though. People can have more than one native tongue, people in Catalonia, Valencia, Galicia and the Basque Country all speak Spanish natively, regardless of whether they also have another native tongue. No one considers them foreign speakers of Spanish.
+1
Level 71
Aug 20, 2024
Also it's native speakers which are relevant here. When you include second language speakers it would be much higher.
+3
Level 65
Nov 10, 2022
I thought the Dominican Republic had a greater population than Cuba...
+2
Level 68
Nov 10, 2022
Completely agree with those saying that Spain has as many Spanish speakers as inhabitants. All Spaniards speak Spanish, regardless of their mother tongue being Catalan, Basque or Galician.
+1
Level 81
Nov 10, 2022
Kinda amazed Guatemala has fewer than Cuba. Never realised there were that many speakers of native languages there.
+1
Level 43
Nov 13, 2022
Kept writing Equador with a q...
+1
Level 71
Feb 25, 2023
No Guatemala???
+1
Level 53
Mar 11, 2023
i cant believe I missed SPAINNN
+1
Level 20
Apr 4, 2023
I cant believe i missed us :))))) i mean really???
+2
Level 41
Jun 17, 2023
My real breakthrough came when I started thinking of countries in the Americas
+1
Level 56
Aug 8, 2024
Currently trying to learn Spanish. Easier than Russian...
+1
Level 71
Aug 19, 2024
Depending on your mother language, this can be not exactly like that.
+3
Level 89
Aug 19, 2024
So now Cuba has dropped off the list? Who pushed them off?
+3
Level 64
Aug 19, 2024
dominican republic surprisingly
+1
Level 68
Aug 20, 2024
Full marks for The Robbster.
+3
Level 49
Aug 20, 2024
This is SO, SO bad lol. Spain has 48,8 million. Guatemala isn't even on the list with almost 18 million... Lot of errors.
+1
Level 71
Aug 20, 2024
It's the number of native Spanish speakers in each country, not the number of people. Quiz looks fine.
+1
Level 73
Aug 20, 2024
Almost everyone who speaks Spanish in Spain does so natively... People can have more than one native tongue, why is that such a difficult concept to understand? Would you consider Hispanics who grow up in the US, and thus speak Spanish natively at home but do their entire education and social life in English, as foreign speakers of either of those languages? No, and it's the same in Spain, the only potential exception being older people in secluded villages that never mastered Spanish in school and never used it in their daily lives, but that is a minuscule minority. Pretending like the entire population of like 5 different regions are non native Spanish speakers is ridiculous
+2
Level 71
Aug 20, 2024
The person I was replying to claimed it was incorrect because he likely thought the quiz was about the population of the country not the number of speakers. In Guatemala for example over 40% of the population speaks Indigenous languages as a mother tongue. As for who is a native speaker of a language, based on the comments on this quiz people in Spain clearly see it in a different way than people in North America. As long as those Hispanic people learnt Spanish at home, not English, Americans don't consider them native English speakers no matter how well they speak English. But that's not the point I was trying to make.
+3
Level 56
Aug 21, 2024
Guatmala:

Population 18.2 million

Spanish Speaking %: 69.9%

Spanish Speakers = 12.72 million

According to our friends at the CIA and the World Factbook.

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/guatemala/

+2
Level ∞
Aug 21, 2024
Cool, we used Wikipedia for that which says 55% speak Spanish natively.

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

+1
Level 45
Aug 30, 2024
i almost didnt put dominican republic
+1
Level 35
Sep 3, 2024
It should be Guatemala instead of Dominican Republic
+1
Level 64
Sep 3, 2024
No Philippines?
+1
Level 60
Sep 11, 2024
numbers are completely outdated
+1
Level 47
Feb 24, 2025
Good quiz :)