Countries where Spanish is spoken

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In today's world, English is the most universal language, the one that most countries learn in order to communicate with the Western world. But there is another language that is spoken by a huge number of countries, in which it is usually used as a first language, we refer to Spanish. Due to the importance of this language, today in this lesson from a TEACHER we are going to talk about countries where Spanish is spoken.

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Index

The importance of Spanish in the world
List of countries that speak Spanish officially
Other countries with many Spanish speakers
Special cases of Spanish in countries of the world

The importance of Spanish in the world.

To begin with this lesson we must talk about Spanish and understand why this language is so important. Spanish is a romance language, that is, it is a language that comes from Latin. It is originally from the Crown of Castile, which is why it is also often called Castilian.

the Spanish is

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the second language of the world by the number of people who speak it as their mother tongue, only surpassed by Mandarin Chinese. It also tends to be considered the third most widely spoken language in the world, with Mandarin Chinese and English being the two most widely spoken.

The main reason why Spanish is such a widely spoken language is because of the spanish conquests, since during the time of the Spanish Empire many territories were taken, which caused the dominions to learn Spanish, since it was the language of the Empire. Most of the countries where Spanish is the official language have been Spanish territories at some point, on the other hand, some territories in which Centuries ago, Spanish was spoken, now they speak English, since with the loss of the country's government, some states preferred to change the language used taught.

List of countries that speak Spanish officially.

To continue with this lesson about countries where Spanish is spoken we must talk about all the countries where Spanish is spoken, either as an official language or as a language with many speakers.

The Spanish it is an official language in 20 countries, being in most of them a mother tongue. Along with this, there are countries where it is used as an administrative language, where it must be learned on a compulsory basis, or which have limited recognition.

The countries whose official language is the following:

Spain
Argentina
Bolivia
chili
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
Ecuador
The Savior
Guatemala
Equatorial Guinea
Honduras
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Dominican Republic
Uruguay
Venezuela

In this list of countries, it should be explained that four countries have Spanish as their official language “de facto”, that is, there is no legal recognition that Spanish is the official language. The countries that make up this group are: Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay.

Countries where Spanish is spoken - List of countries that speak Spanish officially

Image: BBC

Other countries with many Spanish speakers.

There are other countries where people who use Spanish as a daily language live, some of these countries being:

Andorra: The official language is Catalan, but the majority of the population uses Spanish.
USA: Almost 20% of the US population uses Spanish as a language of daily use.
Guam: Much of its population speaks Spanish, because for a time it was a territory of Spain.

Special cases of Spanish in countries of the world.

In addition to the countries where it is officially spoken, there are other countries where Spanish is very important, each of them being a very specific case.

One of these cases is The Philippines, where Spanish was the official language until 1973, and whose study was compulsory at the university until 1987. In 2009, he started a program to teach Spanish in secondary education in Philippine schools. Currently, around 3% of the country's population speaks Spanish.
Another important case is that of New Mexico. The US state does not have Spanish as an official language, but it is a compulsory subject in the areas where there are more Spanish speakers. About 30% of the population of the state of New Mexico speaks Spanish.
The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic it is also a special case with respect to Spanish. The African country has both Arabic and Spanish recognized as working languages, but there is no native speaker of Spanish in the country.
There are also two countries that are obliged to teach Spanish, but it is not their official language. These countries are Belize and Trinidad and Tobago, where its official language is English. In Belize, Spanish is the most widely spoken language, surpassing the official language of the country, but in Trinidad and Tobago, Spanish is spoken only by a significant minority.