Spanish: The World's Second Most-Spoken Native Language

According to the latest annual report from the Cervantes Institute, more than 577 million people speak Spanish worldwide — about 7.6% of the global population. By 2050, the Spanish-speaking population is projected to grow to 756 million, making Spanish the second most widely spoken native language on Earth, after Mandarin.

This 500-million-strong community consists of native speakers, second-language speakers and foreign learners. Of them, 480 million speak Spanish as their mother tongue, and nearly 22 million people across 107 countries are learning the language — a figure estimated to be about 25% higher in reality, since private study is not captured.

Online, Spanish is the third most-used language after English and Chinese, accounting for 8.1% of all online communication. It is also the third most-studied foreign language: the most popular foreign language in the United States, considered the most important language for the future in the UK, with strong interest in France, Sweden and Denmark as well.

In science, Spanish continues to grow in importance despite English's dominance — its share of global scientific output has risen since 1996, concentrated in social sciences, medical sciences, and arts and humanities. In film, Spain, Argentina and Mexico rank in the world's top 15; Spain is also the third-largest book exporter. As Cervantes Institute director Luis García Montero notes: "The GDP produced by all Spanish-speaking countries — 6.9% of world GDP — exceeds that of all countries with French as an official language."