World Language Map

Atlantic-Congo languages map

1,367 Atlantic-Congo languages are on the map, most of them in Nigeria, Cameroon and Democratic Republic of the Congo. It divides into 5 main branches, the largest being Volta-Congo (1,304 languages). The best-known members include Yoruba, Igbo and Kinshasa Lingala. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Atlantic-Congo family at a glance

  • 1,367languages
  • 1,004drawn as areas
  • 363shown as points
  • 5main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Atlantic-Congo alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Atlantic-Congo languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Yoruba spoken? (about 37.8 million speakers)
  2. Where is Igbo spoken? (about 27 million speakers)
  3. Where is Kinshasa Lingala spoken? (about 20 million speakers)
  4. Where is Swahili spoken? (about 16 million speakers)
  5. Where is Hausa States Fulfulde spoken? (about 14.5 million speakers)
  6. Where is Tsonga spoken? (about 13 million speakers)
  7. Where is Zulu spoken? (about 12.1 million speakers)
  8. Where is Kinyarwanda spoken? (about 12.1 million speakers)
  9. Where is Nyanja spoken? (about 12 million speakers)
  10. Where is Akan spoken? (about 11 million speakers)

Branches of Atlantic-Congo

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Volta-Congo (1,304)
  • North-Central Atlantic (44)
  • Mel (10)
  • Cangin (5)
  • Limba (2)

Where Atlantic-Congo languages are spoken

Countries with the most Atlantic-Congo languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 1,367 Atlantic-Congo languages, A to Z

Questions about Atlantic-Congo languages

How many Atlantic-Congo languages are there?

1,367 living Atlantic-Congo languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 5 main branches, the biggest being Volta-Congo (1,304 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Atlantic-Congo languages spoken?

Nigeria (379), Cameroon (235), Democratic Republic of the Congo (212), Tanzania (116), Ghana (85) and Republic of the Congo (77) have the most Atlantic-Congo languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Atlantic-Congo languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Yoruba (about 37.8 million), Igbo (about 27 million) and Kinshasa Lingala (about 20 million). These figures differ between sources and years.

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