There are 21 countries that have Spanish as an official language
But they are not the only countries you are going to find people speaking Spanish.
In these 8 countries Spanish is widely spoken and understood. That makes around 29 countries where you will find people that speak Spanish.
Andorra
Population: 79,218
A tiny country nestled between Spain and France. Andorra has the official language of Catalan but French and Spanish are widely spoken given the location between Spain and France.
Gibraltar
Population: 30,001
This British territory is similar to Andorra because the location of Gibraltar is the reason Spanish is so widely spoken. Gibraltar is located at the southern tip of Spain. Because of that Spanish is very commonly spoken along side the native language English.
Western Sahara
Population: 513,000
Equatorial Guinea is not the only country in Africa that speaks Spanish. In the sparsely populated Western Sahara you will find a large population of Spanish speakers. The reason being that the country was once a former Spanish colony.
Belize
Population: 331,900
Spanish is not an official language Belize but the country is surrounded by Spanish speaking countries making Spanish an important language. The official language of Belize is English mainly because it was know as British Honduras from 1862 to 1981. Even with the British influence all those years, Belize still has more than half of the population that speaks Spanish as their first language.
Brazil
Population: 200,400,000
While Portuguese is the official language of Brazil, it is surrounded by Spanish speaking countries. Because of this Spanish is understood by several people, especially people along Brazil’s boarders.
Philippines
Population: 98,390,000
Up until 1987 Spanish was the Philippines official language. This is because Spain ruled this country for around three centuries. Today however the official language is Filipino and less than 1% of the people can speak Spanish fluently. But around 700,000 people do speak Chavacano which a Spanish bases creole language.
Trinidad and Tobago
Population: 1,341,000
Off the coast of Venezuela you will find Trinidad and Tobago. England took over this former Spanish colony in 1797. Because of the history and the close proximity to South America, Spanish is still and important language in the country.
United States
Population: 318,900,000
This might come as a surprise why this is on the list but the United States has a huge Spanish speaking population. In fact the number of Spanish speaking in the United States makes it the second largest Spanish speaking country. The U.S. comes in second only to it’s neighbor to the South Mexico. It is projected that the United States will take the number one spot by 2050. Another interesting fact is even though English is the most widely spoken language in the United States it is not the official language. Why? It’s because the United States does not have an official language.
There you have it all the lesser know Spanish speaking countries. If you want to know more about the countries whose official language is indeed Spanish then check out this post.
