Indo-European · ISO 639-3 fra · fr
French Language français
French is an Indo-European language spoken by about 208 million people in 62 countries. It is an official language of France, DR Congo, Cameroon, Algeria, Canada, Côte d'Ivoire, Burundi, Madagascar and 31 more. It is written in the Latin script.
Where French is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak French
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Italic
- Latino-Faliscan
- Latinic
- Imperial Latin
- Romance
- Italo-Western Romance
- Western Romance
- Shifted Western Romance
- Northwestern Shifted Romance
- Gallo-Rhaetian
- Oil
- Central Oil
- Macro-French
- Global French
- French
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
All 62 countries
| Country | Speakers | Share | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
 France | 66,323,362 | 97% | Official |
 DR Congo | 58,855,530 | 51% | Official |
 Cameroon | 21,056,948 | 68% | Official |
 Algeria | 15,517,425 | 33% | Official |
 Germany | 15,141,438 | 18% | — |
 Morocco | 13,459,536 | 36% | De facto official |
 Italy | 12,192,980 | 20% | Regional official |
 United Kingdom | 11,638,047 | 17% | — |
 Canada | 11,250,492 | 29% | Official |
 Côte d'Ivoire | 10,193,812 | 34% | Official |
 Burundi | 8,018,159 | 59% | Official |
 Madagascar | 7,952,229 | 27% | Official |
 Tunisia | 6,385,864 | 53% | Official |
 Burkina Faso | 5,760,550 | 25% | Official |
 Benin | 4,997,014 | 34% | Official |
 Haiti | 4,936,638 | 42% | Official |
 Senegal | 4,900,350 | 26% | Official |
 Belgium | 4,551,488 | 38% | Official |
 Guinea | 3,776,274 | 27% | Official |
 Mali | 3,738,402 | 17% | Official |
 Republic of the Congo | 3,719,578 | 61% | Official |
 Togo | 3,656,375 | 41% | Official |
 Switzerland | 3,455,622 | 39% | Official |
 Niger | 3,424,564 | 13% | Official |
 Netherlands | 3,376,756 | 19% | — |
 Chad | 2,482,168 | 13% | Official |
 Romania | 2,177,784 | 12% | — |
 Lebanon | 2,038,502 | 38% | — |
 United States | 1,914,992 | 0.56% | — |
 Central African Republic | 1,638,778 | 29% | Official |
 Gabon | 1,546,719 | 63% | Official |
 Portugal | 1,531,080 | 15% | — |
 Syria | 1,408,058 | 5.9% | — |
 Austria | 1,165,837 | 13% | — |
 Mauritius | 956,665 | 73% | Official |
 Rwanda | 790,151 | 5.8% | Official |
 Greece | 763,660 | 7.3% | — |
 Ireland | 680,349 | 13% | — |
 Luxembourg | 617,553 | 92% | Official |
 Mauritania | 562,645 | 13% | — |
 Equatorial Guinea | 520,790 | 29% | Official |
 Djibouti | 497,487 | 50% | Official |
 Guinea-Bissau | 319,849 | 15% | — |
 New Caledonia | 301,125 | 99% | Official |
 French Polynesia | 297,469 | 98% | Official |
 Comoros | 234,036 | 26% | Official |
 Hungary | 118,269 | 1.2% | — |
 Vanuatu | 98,582 | 31% | Official |
 Cyprus | 87,154 | 6.6% | — |
 New Zealand | 61,934 | 1.2% | — |
 Malta | 61,064 | 13% | — |
 Seychelles | 52,039 | 53% | Official |
 Sao Tome and Principe | 44,712 | 20% | — |
 Monaco | 30,858 | 97% | Official |
 Saint Martin | 27,716 | 84% | Official |
 Wallis and Futuna | 13,250 | 83% | Official |
 Saint Barthelemy | 6,023 | 85% | Official |
 Andorra | 5,805 | 6.8% | — |
 Saint Pierre and Miquelon | 5,132 | 100% | Official |
 Sint Maarten | 701 | 1.5% | — |
 Guernsey | — | — | — |
 Jersey | — | — | — |
About the French language
French (français) is spoken by about 208 million people, which makes it the 9th most spoken language in the world — just behind Portuguese (254 million) and ahead of Panjabi (200 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Global French group within the Italic branch.
Where is French spoken?
French is used in 62 countries. The largest communities live in France (66 million), DR Congo (59 million), Cameroon (21 million), Algeria (16 million) and Germany (15 million). More than half of the population speaks it in France, DR Congo, Cameroon, Burundi, Tunisia, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Mauritius, Luxembourg, Djibouti and 8 more — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks French: France 97% (66 million), DR Congo 51% (59 million), Cameroon 68% (21 million), Algeria 33% (16 million), Germany 18% (15 million) and Morocco 36% (13 million).
French is an official language in 39 countries: France, DR Congo, Cameroon, Algeria, Canada, Côte d'Ivoire, Burundi, Madagascar, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Benin, Haiti, Senegal, Belgium, Guinea and 24 more. It also has regional official status in Italy.
Writing system and status
French is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Haitian, Morisyen, Romansh, Lombard, Piemontese, Emilian and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 fr, ISO 639-3 fra.
Frequently asked questions about French
How many people speak French?
Where is French spoken?
In which countries is French an official language?
What language family does French belong to?
What is French called in French?
Is French an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.