Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before

Arabic

Spread of the Arabic language

This smaller map removes the countries where Arabic is dominant. This map therefore only shows 4.5% of all speakers of Arabic. The territories omitted are Bahrain, Kuwait, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, Gaza Strip & West Bank, Syrian Arab Republic, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Yemen, Mauritania, Iraq and Western Sahara.

Click the map for a larger image.

Arabic is a collection of distinct dialects, spoken largely in the Middle East (northern Africa and western Asia), but also by smaller numbers in territories throughout the world. It is spoken as a first language by around 260 million people in at least 65 different territories.

Standard Arabic is widely use in education, business and the media, and bridges the gaps between the various dialects that may not always be mutually intelligible.

Territory size shows the proportion of all people who speak Arabic as a first language that live in that territory.

Language Map Index
View labelled territory map or population map for comparison
Language data sources and tech notes
Data File: Excel, Opendoc format ( see notes )
All of the data we use is estimated; see data page

Open Population Map
for comparison

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