Global Language Diversity on Wikipedia

A table showing the relationship between language speaker populations and Wikipedia article counts.
Author

Carwil Bjork-James

Published

August 1, 2026

Languages and Wikipedia Articles

The largest Wikipedia editions by number of articles, 2024 (CC-0 Arief Azazie Zain)

Top 250 Languages by Number of Speakers

Speaker estimates are L1 (first-language) counts from LinguaMeta, supplemented for a handful of languages where LinguaMeta lacks an estimate (sourced from Wikipedia), plus Mandarin Chinese where LinguaMeta uses the same estimate as for Chinese as a whole. Background shading: blue = speaker population; green/gold = Wikipedia article count.

Top 250 at a Glance

Languages ranked left-to-right, top-to-bottom by estimated L1 speaker population. Background color reflects Wikipedia article count: slate = no Wikipedia; teal/green = small–medium edition; amber = largest editions (1M+ articles).

Chinese
中文
1.3B  1.5M
English
English
1.3B  7.2M
Mandarin Chinese
普通话
990.0M  1.5M
Hindi
हिन्दी
544.0M  171K
Spanish
español
468.4M  2.1M
Arabic
العربية
346.3M  1.3M
Urdu
اردو
288.0M  668K
Bengali
বাংলা
266.0M  190K
Portuguese
português
225.8M  1.2M
French
français
203.2M  2.8M
Punjabi
پنجابی
200.0M  60K
Indonesian
Bahasa Indonesia
171.0M  787K
Swahili
Kiswahili
171.0M  122K
Russian
русский
170.2M  2.1M
Japanese
日本語
119.0M  1.5M
Western Panjabi
شاہ مُکھی
113.0M  76K
Telugu
తెలుగు
95.0M  127K
Lahnda
93.0M  76K
Marathi
मराठी
93.0M  102K
German
Deutsch
91.7M  3.1M
Javanese
Basa Jawa
91.0M  75K
Vietnamese
Tiếng Việt
85.0M  1.3M
Wu Chinese
吳語
84.0M  48K
Persian
فارسی
82.0M  1.1M
Caribbean Javanese
82.0M  75K
Tamil
தமிழ்
81.5M  189K
Yue Chinese
廣東話
79.0M  151K
Egyptian Arabic
اللغه المصريه الحديثه
78.0M  1.3M
Turkish
Türkçe
76.3M  693K
Korean
한국어
75.0M  756K
Filipino
Filipino
66.0M  49K
Italian
italiano
65.3M  2.0M
Jinyu Chinese
晋语
63.0M  1.5M
Gujarati
ગુજરાતી
60.0M  31K
Thai
ภาษาไทย
55.0M  186K
Pashto
پښتو
53.0M  21K
Kannada
ಕನ್ನಡ
49.0M  35K
Nigerian Pidgin
Naija
45.0M  2K
Malayalam
മലയാളം
42.0M  88K
Min Nan Chinese
Min Nan
42.0M  434K
Oromo
Afaan Oromoo
42.0M  2K
Odia (Oriya)
ଓଡ଼ିଆ
42.0M  21K
Xiang Chinese
湘語
40.0M  1.5M
Sindhi
سنڌي
38.4M  22K
Sudanese Arabic
لهجة سودانية
37.0M  1.3M
Fulah
Fulfulde
37.0M  21K
Polish
polski
37.0M  1.7M
Amharic
አማርኛ
36.0M  16K
Algerian Arabic
الدارجة الجزائرية
36.0M  1.3M
Myanmar (Burmese)
မြန်မာ
36.0M  112K
Odia
35.0M  21K
Malay
Bahasa Melayu
34.4M  440K
Bhojpuri
भोजपुरी
33.5M  9K
Tagalog
Filipino
33.0M  49K
Hakka Chinese
客家話
32.0M  10K
Sundanese
Basa Sunda
32.0M  63K
Moroccan Arabic
الداريجة المغريبية
31.0M  19K
Azerbaijani
Azərbaycanca
29.2M  216K
Ukrainian
українська
29.0M  1.4M
Hausa
Hausa
28.2M  107K
Igbo
Igbo
28.0M  48K
Saraiki
سرائیکی
28.0M  25K
Northern Uzbek
28.0M  353K
Yoruba
Èdè Yorùbá
28.0M  39K
Cebuano
Cebuano
26.0M  6.1M
Uzbek
o‘zbek
26.0M  353K
Saidi Arabic
صعيدى
25.0M  1.3M
Awadhi
अवधी
25.0M  3K
Antankarana Malagasy
25.0M  104K
Dutch
Nederlands
24.1M  2.2M
South Azerbaijani
تۆرکجه
24.0M  245K
North Azerbaijani
24.0M  216K
Gan Chinese
贛語
24.0M  7K
Malagasy
Malagasy
24.0M  104K
Marwari
मारवाड़ी
22.0M  —
Romanian
română
21.1M  546K
Nepali
नेपाली
20.4M  30K
Maithili
मैथिली
19.3M  14K
Rajasthani
राजस्थानी
19.3M  —
Serbo-Croatian
srpskohrvatski jezik
19.0M  462K

Additional Languages with Wikipedia Editions

These languages fall outside the top 250 by speaker population but have active Wikipedia editions. Global rank (by estimated L1 speakers) shown where available.

Classical, Constructed, and Special-Purpose Wikipedia Editions

These Wikipedia editions are not associated with a living natural language in the LinguaMeta dataset. They include classical and liturgical languages (Latin, Sanskrit, Old English), constructed languages (Esperanto is covered above; Ido, Interlingua, Volapük, etc. appear here), dialect/regional-code editions, and the Simple English Wikipedia.

Language Language Description Articles Wikipedia Edition
Simple English English-based controlled language 283,870 Simple English Wikipedia
Simple English Wikipedia
Latin Indo-European language of the Italic branch 142,054 Latin Wikipedia
Vicipaedia Latina
Ido constructed international auxiliary language 63,354 Ido Wikipedia
Wikipedio en Ido
Volapük constructed international auxiliary language 53,967 Volapük Wikipedia
Vükiped Volapükik
Interlingua international auxiliary language created by IALA 30,496 Interlingua Wikipedia
Wikipedia in interlingua
Kotava international auxiliary language created in 1978 29,905 Kotava Wikipedia
Wikipedia men Kotava
Classical Chinese language of the Sino-Tibetan language family in written form (ISO 639-3: lzh) as opposed to the spoken, known as Old Chinese (ISO 639-3: och) or Middle Chinese (ISO 639-3: ltc) 14,137 Classical Chinese Wikipedia
文言維基大典
(Wényán wéijī dàdiǎn)
Interlingue international auxiliary language created 1922 13,729 Interlingue Wikipedia
Wikipedia in Interlingue
Sanskrit ancient Indo-Aryan language of South Asia 12,522 Sanskrit Wikipedia
संस्कृतविकिपीडिया
(Saṃskṛta vikipīḍiyā)
Old English earliest historical form of English 5,230 Old English Wikipedia
Engliscan Ƿikipǣdia
Lingua Franca Nova auxiliary constructed language, originally created by C. George Boeree, and largely based on a Romance substrate partially creolized then modified by some evolutive rules of simplification 4,677 Lingua Franca Nova Wikipedia
Vicipedia en lingua franca nova
Toki Pona minimalist language created by Sonja Lang 4,516 Toki Pona Wikipedia
lipu Wikipesija pi toki pona
Novial constructed language 2,069 Novial Wikipedia
Wikipedie in novial
Interslavic Pan-Slavic auxiliary language 1,579 Interslavic Wikipedia
Medžuslovjansky Vikipedija
(Меджусловyанскy Википедија)
Old Church Slavonic medieval Slavic literary language, without ISO codes, preceding Church Slavonic (Q33251, cu, chu) 1,482 Old Church Slavonic Wikipedia
Словѣньска Википєдїꙗ
(Slověnĭska Vikipedija)
Lojban constructed language based on predicate logic 1,356 Lojban Wikipedia
ni'o la .uikipedi'as. pe lo jbobau
Gothic extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths 1,030 Gothic Wikipedia
𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌹𐍃𐌺 𐍅𐌹𐌺𐌹𐍀𐌰𐌹𐌳𐌾𐌰
(Gutisk wikipaidja)
Pali Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian subcontinent 304 Pali Wikipedia
पालि विकिपीडिया
(Pāli vikipīḍiyā)