Official and Regional Languages of Asia on a Map

One big difference between Asia and Europe, is that with Europe I could comfortably cover just about every language spoken as a majority in just about every given area. In Asia, thanks to factors including massive geographic barriers, great amounts of diversity and lower levels of education and thus survival of minority languages, there are several areas of smaller unrecognised languages that have been left grey.

Some areas have been simplified. For example, while people may assume that Israel=Hebrew-speaking, Palestine=Arabic-speaking, the truth is that Hebrew is spoken throughout the West Bank and Arabic is spoken in locations across the north of Israel. I cannot show all detail through this medium.

To generalise, Asian countries are less likely to have the same 'clear-cut' recognition of minority languages as their European counterparts. Some recognise dozens, while others recognise one. There is unavoidable subjectivity here.

English is actually the largest spoken language in Singapore and Christmas Island, however since it and Portuguese are not the majority first language anywhere in Asia, they are automatically filled in.

I tried to choose the flags that fit the language the best. I have done my best to avoid controversial flags, but if there are any flags of guerilla movements for whatever reason I will replace them.

I cannot show it on the map, but sadly many of these languages are in decline, and will soon be transparent (in the likes of Assyrian or Ainu) for a variety of factors including migration, modernisation, etc. (not saying these factors are bad, but rather have unfortunate consequences for the minority languages).

There is too much to say about the quiz, I hope I covered everything important! Will try and do one for the Americas next :)