Swahili

191M people can hold a conversation in Swahili across 10 countries; official in 3.

Data as of 28 Oct 2026 · ISO 639-3 swh · Glottolog swah1253 · Atlantic-Congo · CLDR 49, Glottolog 5.3, States sheet

Where Swahili is spoken

Share of each country's people who can hold a conversation in it.

Loading map…

Small territories are not drawn at this scale.

Countries

Share of the population and people who can hold a conversation in it, by country.

How this is measured

Most figures are CLDR's estimates of speakers. CLDR lists only each country's larger languages, so where it has no figure a national census or official survey fills in, and the Figure column says which and what it counts. A home-language figure is a floor: more people can speak the language than use it at home.

Sort by

Tanzania

official

90%

63.0M

Congo DR

regional

50%

58.2M

Kenya

official

66%

35.2M

Uganda

official

75%

34.4M

Somalia

none

2.0%

393K

Canada

none · Census, mother tongue

0.0%

17K

Mozambique

none

0.0%

10K

Burundi

none

0.1%

Mayotte

none

1.4%

South Africa

none

0.0%

#	Country			Status	Figure
1	Tanzania	90%	63.0M	official	CLDR
2	Congo DR	50%	58.2M	regional	CLDR
3	Kenya	66%	35.2M	official	CLDR
4	Uganda	75%	34.4M	official	CLDR
5	Somalia	2.0%	393K	none	CLDR
6	Canada	0.0%	17K	none	Census, mother tongue
7	Mozambique	0.0%	10K	none	CLDR
8	Burundi	0.1%	6K	none	CLDR
9	Mayotte	1.4%	4K	none	CLDR
10	South Africa	0.0%	0	none	CLDR

States where it is the first language

States whose first language is this one, largest population first.

9.3M

8.0M

6.9M

5.4M

4.6M

4.4M

4.4M

3.8M

3.7M

3.4M

3.2M

3.2M

#	State	Country
1	North Kivu	Congo DR	9,314,854
2	South Kivu	Congo DR	8,041,320
3	Haut-Katanga	Congo DR	6,876,621
4	Dar es Salaam	Tanzania	5,383,728
5	Tanganyika	Congo DR	4,589,976
6	Haut-Lomami	Congo DR	4,402,222
7	Nairobi	Kenya	4,397,073
8	Lualaba	Congo DR	3,823,104
9	Mwanza	Tanzania	3,699,872
10	Tabora	Tanzania	3,391,679
11	Maniema	Congo DR	3,247,557
12	Morogoro	Tanzania	3,197,104
13	Dodoma	Tanzania	3,085,625
14	Kagera	Tanzania	2,989,299
15	Geita	Tanzania	2,977,608
16	Tanga	Tanzania	2,615,597
17	Kigoma	Tanzania	2,470,967
18	Kiambu	Kenya	2,417,735
19	Mara	Tanzania	2,372,015
20	Arusha	Tanzania	2,356,255
21	Mbeya	Tanzania	2,343,754
22	Shinyanga	Tanzania	2,241,299
23	Nakuru	Kenya	2,162,202
24	Simiyu	Tanzania	2,140,497
25	Pwani	Tanzania	2,024,947
26	Singida	Tanzania	2,008,058
27	Manyara	Tanzania	1,892,502
28	Kakamega	Kenya	1,867,579
29	Kilimanjaro	Tanzania	1,861,934
30	Ruvuma	Tanzania	1,848,794
31	Bungoma	Kenya	1,670,570
32	Mtwara	Tanzania	1,634,947
33	Meru	Kenya	1,545,714
34	Rukwa	Tanzania	1,540,519
35	Kilifi	Kenya	1,453,787
36	Machakos	Kenya	1,421,932
37	Songwe	Tanzania	1,344,687
38	Kisii	Kenya	1,266,860
39	Mombasa	Kenya	1,208,333
40	Lindi	Tanzania	1,194,028
41	Iringa	Tanzania	1,192,728
42	Uasin Gishu	Kenya	1,163,186
43	Narok	Kenya	1,157,873
44	Kisumu	Kenya	1,155,574
45	Katavi	Tanzania	1,152,958
46	Kitui	Kenya	1,136,187
47	Homa Bay	Kenya	1,131,950
48	Kajiado	Kenya	1,117,840
49	Migori	Kenya	1,116,436
50	Murang'a	Kenya	1,056,640

Family

Where it sits in the Glottolog tree, root to language.

Atlantic-Congo
Volta-Congo
Benue-Congo
Bantoid
Southern Bantoid
Narrow Bantu
East Bantu
Northeast Savanna Bantu
Northeast Coastal Bantu
Coastal NEC Bantu
Sabaki-Swahili
Swahili (G.40)
Mombasa-Lamu-Inland Swahili
Swahili

Atlantic-Congo: 143 languages, 609M speakers.

Where these numbers come from

Unicode CLDR territoryInfo (release 49) (Unicode License v3). Country-level language shares, official status and Tier 3 reach (populationPercent is total speakers, first plus second language).
Glottolog 5.3 (CC BY 4.0). Language names, ISO 639-3 codes, families.
Database of International and Intranational Linguistic distances (DICL v2), USITC (CC BY 4.0). Country-pair linguistic proximity (loaded, not yet shown in release one).
States (ISO 3166-2) sheet, MetroAreas workbook (Citizen of Nowhere, own compilation). States, populations and the four language labels per state.
Natural Earth 1:110m Admin 0 Countries (nvkelso/natural-earth-vector) (Public domain). World outline for the language maps (world-110m.geojson, properties reduced to iso3 and name).
Country layer of this site (countries.json workbook population, World Bank iso2 and iso3, OWID country-population) (Citizen of Nowhere, own compilation; World Bank CC BY 4.0; OWID CC BY). Country population, iso2 and /countries slug joined onto languages, countries and families (speakers = share x population).

Definitions are on the Method page.