Spanish is the native language of 21 countries, as well as being the official and common language of forums such as the UN, EU and Interpol
Language and culture are Spain’s most universal values. Spanish is currently spoken by about 500 million people. It is the second language in the world in terms of the number of native speakers and is the second language of international communication. It is also the second most widely-studied language in the world (after English, with more than 20 million students, although some sources say there are more than 46 million students in 90 countries).
Spanish is also the third most widely-used language on the Internet (7.8% of the total) and the official or quasi-official language of 21 countries. Its strength and drive are more and more obvious. Apart from Castilian, Spain has three co-official languages, Catalan, Basque and Galician, as well as the Valencian language.
More than seven per cent of the world’s population speaks Spanish. That means that around 500 million people are Spanish speakers. Aside from Spain, Mexico (with a population of 112 million) is the country with the most Spanish speakers. The United States is next with 40 million. It is also the official language of Puerto Rico.
Of the almost 495 million Spanish speakers around the world, 400 million (82%) are native speakers. According to Ethnologue it is the world's most spoken language after Mandarin Chinese.
Spanish is an Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Iberian Romance and Western Iberian language with a Latin alphabet.
Countries where it is the official or common language are;Argentina (not official), Bolivia, Chile (not official), Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Guatemala, Equatorial Guinea, Honduras, Mexico (there is no official language in Mexico but Spanish is the de facto official language, in addition to 67 other linguistic groups), Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official with Guarani), Peru (co-official with other indigenous languages), Puerto Rico (ELA), the Dominican Republic, Uruguay (not official) and Venezuela.
Spanish is also used in International Bodies. It is the co-official language of the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, Europol, WEU, OAS, ALBA, the Caricom, Mercosur, CAN, Unasur, SICA, Aladi, Interpol, the Ibero-American Summit, Abinia, UL, FIFA, the Antarctic Treaty System, ATP...
Demographic analyses show that between 1950 and 2050 the proportion of Chinese and English speaking people will decrease. In contrast, the number of Spanish, Hindi and Arabic speakers is increasing gradually and constantly.
According to data published by the Britannica World Data Analyst, by 2030 an estimated 7.5% of the world population will speak Spanish, far ahead of Russian (2.2%), French (1.4%) and German (1.2%). If these predictions are accurate, within three or four generations, 10% of the world population will communicate in Spanish.
By 2050 the United States will also be the country where most Spanish is spoken in the world. Estimates released by the United States Census Bureau show that there will be 132.8 million Hispanics by 2050, almost three times the current 50 million. This means that 30% of the population, nearly one in three residents of the United States, will be Hispanic and speak Spanish.