List of countries and territories where Spanish is an official language

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.

There are 21 UN member states where Spanish is an official language (de jure and de facto).

Official or national language

Spanish is the official language (either by law or de facto) in 21 sovereign states (including Equatorial Guinea, where it is official but not a native language, and Antigua and Barbuda, where it is an "official second language"), one dependent territory, and one partially recognized state, totaling around 442 million people.

Primary or only official language In these countries and territories, Spanish serves as the predominant language of communication for the vast majority of the population. Official documents are primarily or exclusively composed in this language, and it is systematically taught in educational institutions, functioning as the principal medium of instruction within the official curriculum.

Sovereign states

Sovereign state Status Population(2021) Regulatory body More information Mexico does not have an official language at the federal level ; however, Spanish is spoken by the majority. 130,207,371 Academia Mexicana de la Lengua Mexican Spanish De jureConstitution of Colombia, Art. 10 52,695,952 Academia Colombiana de la Lengua Colombian Spanish De jureSpanish Constitution , Art. 3-1 48,797,875 Real Academia Española Peninsular Spanish, Canarian Spanish De factoThe Argentine Constitution does not establish Spanish as an official language. 45,864,941 Academia Argentina de Letras Rioplatense Spanish De jureConstitution of Peru, Art. 48 32,201,224 Academia Peruana de la Lengua Peruvian Spanish De jureConstitution of Venezuela, Art. 9 29,069,159 Academia Venezolana de la Lengua Venezuelan Spanish De factoThe 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.) 18,307,925 Academia Chilena de la Lengua Chilean Spanish De jureConstitution of Guatemala, Art. 143 17,422,821 Academia Guatemalteca de la Lengua Guatemalan Spanish De jureConstitution of Ecuador, Art. 2 17,093,159 Academia Ecuatoriana de la Lengua Ecuadorian Spanish De jureConstitution of Bolivia, Art. 5 11,758,869 Academia Boliviana de la Lengua Bolivian Spanish De jureConstitution of Cuba , Art. 2 11,032,343 Academia Cubana de la LenguaCuban Spanish De jure Constitution of the Dominican Republic, Art. 29 10,597,348 Academia Dominicana de la LenguaDominican Spanish De jureConstitution of Honduras, Art. 6 9,346,277 Academia Hondureña de la Lengua Honduran Spanish De jureConstitution of Paraguay, Art. 140 7,272,639 Academia Paraguaya de la Lengua EspañolaParaguayan Spanish De jureConstitution of El Salvador, Art. 62 6,528,135 Academia Salvadoreña de la LenguaSalvadoran Spanish De jure Constitution of Nicaragua, Art. 11 6,243,931 Academia Nicaragüense de la LenguaNicaraguan Spanish De jureConstitution of Costa Rica, Art. 76 5,151,140 Academia Costarricense de la LenguaCosta Rican Spanish De jureConstitution of Panama, Art. 7 3,928,646 Academia Panameña de la LenguaPanamanian Spanish De factoThe Constitution of Uruguay does not establish Spanish as an official language. 3,398,239 Academia Nacional de Letras Uruguayan Spanish De jureConstitution of Equatorial Guinea , Art. 4 1,468,777 Academia Ecuatoguineana de la Lengua Española Equatoguinean Spanish Total 20 countries 464,509,172 Association of Academies of the Spanish Language

Territory Territory Status Population(2021) Regulatory body More information De jureConstitution of Puerto Rico , 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. 3,142,779 Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua EspañolaPuerto Rican Spanish

Secondary official language Sovereign state State Status More information De jureSpanish language in Antigua and Barbuda

Partially recognized state Spanish is a secondary language, co-official with Arabic as the primary language. State Status More information De factoThe Constitution of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic does not establish Spanish as an official language. However, Spanish is the country's secondary language, used on official emblems, currency, government agencies, embassies and educational institutions. Additionally, several political figures, including the President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic Brahim Ghali, have described Spanish as one of the official languages of the country.Saharan Spanish

Secondary de facto language Spanish is a secondary de facto language, alongside English.

Officially recognized state State Status More information De facto New Mexican Spanish

Notes:

Significant language

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.

Territory Population(2022) Total speakers PercentageSpanish-speaking 85,468 ~40,000 48.6% 419,137 199,393 54.0% 34,003 25,500 75% 339,665,118 ~45,000,000 14%

Andorra

Spanish is not the official language of Andorra but holds a special status in some fields, namely in education and business. 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.Presentació dels resultats de l'enquesta de coneixements i usos lingüístics del 2022, Government of Andorra, 2022. (in Catalan). 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. In 2008, 30.8% of students were enrolled in the Spanish education system.

Belize

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 2022 Belizean census, Spanish is spoken by a sizable portion of the population; 54% of the population has a working knowledge of the language.

Gibraltar

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.Buck, Tobias. Gibraltar fears loss of identity over Yanito decline, Financial Times, 6 April 2017. Barahona, Pepe. Why the Spanish language is losing ground in Gibraltar, El País, 14 August 2019.

United States

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.

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. Though not official, Spanish has a special status in the American state of New Mexico. 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. (Spanish) Spanish is increasingly used alongside English nationwide in business and politics. Media in Spanish has also become influential outside of native Hispanophone circles.Garay, Ryan. Música bilingüe: How America shaped its own Spanish-language hits, The Daily Californian, 1 December 2022. In the United States, correct use of the language is advocated by the North American Academy of the Spanish Language.

Officially recognized status Philippines

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, President Ferdinand 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.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. Additionally, the present Philippine Constitution, in its Article XIV,Article XIV, Sec 8: This Constitution shall be promulgated in Filipino and English and shall be translated into major regional languages, Arabic, and Spanish. stipulates that the Government shall provide the people of the Philippines with a Spanish-language translation of the Constitution.Constitution of the Philippines, Art. 14 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".

On 8 August 2007, President Gloria 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. By 2012, the language was a compulsory subject at only a very select number of secondary schools. Since then, the language is only offered as an elective course for high school students.DepEd enhances learners' foreign language skills through special program in foreign language, Department of Education (Philippines), 20 February 2017. As of 2020, only about 400,000 people, which accounts for under 0.5% of the population, can speak Spanish at least proficiently.

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, use of correct Spanish is promoted by the Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language.

Other legal status Western Sahara

Spanish is an official language, alongside Arabic, of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, a partially recognized state that claims Western Sahara. The territory, a former Spanish colony now mostly occupied by Morocco, is regarded as a non-self-governing territory by the United Nations. Although Spanish is not commonly spoken as a native language in Western Sahara, it is widely used as a secondary language in the region's SADR-controlled area, while the Moroccan government uses Arabic and French in administrating the Moroccan-occupied area.

Creole languages