Indo-European · ISO 639-3 rus · ru
Russian Language русский
Russian is an Indo-European language spoken by about 170 million people in 23 countries. It is an official language of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. It is written in the Cyrillic and Latin scripts.
Where Russian is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Russian
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Balto-Slavic
- Slavic
- East Slavic
- Russian
Writing system
Cyrillic and Latin scripts
Related languages
All 23 countries
| Country | Speakers | Share | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
 Russia | 139,412,790 | 99% | Official |
 Ukraine | 16,404,428 | 46% | De facto official |
 Kazakhstan | 14,587,200 | 72% | Official |
 Poland | 6,974,334 | 18% | — |
 Belarus | 6,746,029 | 71% | Official |
 Uzbekistan | 5,112,884 | 14% | — |
 Germany | 5,047,146 | 6% | — |
 Kyrgyzstan | 2,221,956 | 36% | Official |
 Lithuania | 2,102,552 | 80% | — |
 Armenia | 1,934,900 | 65% | — |
 Bulgaria | 1,560,011 | 23% | — |
 Tajikistan | 1,247,292 | 12% | — |
 Israel | 1,034,288 | 11% | — |
 United States | 820,711 | 0.24% | — |
 Turkmenistan | 689,298 | 12% | — |
 Latvia | 684,475 | 38% | — |
 Estonia | 668,522 | 56% | — |
 Georgia | 441,086 | 9% | — |
 Canada | 329,755 | 0.85% | — |
 Moldova | 107,985 | 3% | — |
 Finland | 45,573 | 0.81% | — |
 China | 14,160 | 0% | — |
 Mongolia | 3,938 | 0.12% | — |
About the Russian language
Russian (русский) is spoken by about 170 million people, which makes it the 12th most spoken language in the world — just behind Indonesian (199 million) and ahead of Japanese (128 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the East Slavic group within the Balto-Slavic branch.
Where is Russian spoken?
Russian is used in 23 countries. The largest communities live in Russia (139 million), Ukraine (16 million), Kazakhstan (15 million), Poland (7.0 million) and Belarus (6.7 million). More than half of the population speaks it in Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Lithuania, Armenia and Estonia — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Russian: Russia 99% (139 million), Ukraine 46% (16 million), Kazakhstan 72% (15 million), Poland 18% (7.0 million), Belarus 71% (6.7 million) and Uzbekistan 14% (5.1 million).
Russian is an official language in 5 countries: Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine.
Writing system and status
Russian is written in the Cyrillic and Latin scripts. 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 Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, Slovak and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 ru, ISO 639-3 rus.
Frequently asked questions about Russian
How many people speak Russian?
Where is Russian spoken?
In which countries is Russian an official language?
What language family does Russian belong to?
What is Russian called in Russian?
Is Russian 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.