The countries with the most German speakers

Three EU countries have German as their sole nationwide official language: the small principality of Liechtenstein, where 35,000 people speak German; Austria, with around 7.5 million German speakers; and of course Germany, with about 10 times as many people who use the language — not all of the nearly 83 million German citizens speak German though.

In Switzerland, German is one of four official languages. About two thirds of the population ⁠— 5 million people ⁠— speak German. German emigrants like Hermann Hesse and Erich Maria Remarque, both famous authors, were enamored with Switzerland's Italian-speaking region. In exile and until his death, Remarque often lived in this villa on Lake Maggiore

In Luxembourg, too, German is one of the country's official languages, alongside Luxembourgish and French. About 470,000 inhabitants of the Grand Duchy speak German as their mother tongue. Luxembourgish has only been the national language since 1984 and is spoken mainly on radio and television. However, most writing is done in German.

The spread of a language reflects history: In France, German is a minority language. The country's 1.2 million German speakers live in the German-French border area that includes Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine. They speak Franconian and Alemannic dialects. Old inscriptions recall the times of German administration.

German is the official minority language in Italy in South Tyrol, which belonged to Austria until 1919. Even today, more than 60% of the population in the autonomous province of Bolzano-South Tyrol, which has about 520,000 inhabitants, speak German as their mother tongue. Throughout the province, signs are bilingual, in German and Italian.

In Europe, Spain is the most popular country for German emigrants. About half a million Germans have settled there, with large German colonies on the Canary Islands, Mallorca and along the Spanish mainland coast. These regions also attract a lot of German tourists.

In many Dutch towns like Venlo (photo), German is spoken and written in addition to the national language. About 360,000 Germans who emigrated to the country live in the Netherlands. Many Dutch schools offer German as a foreign language.

Germans have left their mark across Ireland. For instance Handel's "Messiah" oratorio was first performed in 1742 in Dublin's Old Music Hall in Fishamble Street (photo). A German architect by the name of Richard Castle designed many imposing buildings in Dublin in the early 18th century. Today about 100,000 people in Ireland still speak German.

Some 100,000 Israelis speak German; most of them are descendants of Jewish immigrants. German was long frowned upon as the language of the Nazis, but it overcame that stigma around two decades ago. As interest in Germany grows, so does interest in the German language. Some schools offer German as a foreign language, and German courses are often fully booked.

The German language in Russia looks back at a history of more than 250 years. As early as 1763, German-born Catherine the Great enabled thousands of German farmers to settle on the Volga. After 1990, many of the once 2.3 million Russian-Germans moved to Germany. At present, 394,000 ethnic Germans still live in Russia. Not all of them speak the German language, however.

Even before the Second World War, Kazakhstan was home to over 92,000 "local Germans," descendants of people who voluntarily resettled, refugees from the Volga region and expropriated farmers. During WWII, more than 444,000 Germans were deported to Kazakhstan. Today, two-thirds of Kazakhstan's German population still speak German — about 350,000 people.

South Africa is popular with German emigrants. Cape Town even has a German quarter, nicknamed "Sauerkraut Hill." The numbers vary, but there are an estimated 100,000 to 500,000 native German speakers in the sunny country. In the mid-19th century, missionaries from Lower Saxony and other emigrants founded settlements they named after their home towns, like Hermannsburg and Lüneburg.

Over 50 million Americans claim German ancestry, and up until the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, over 10,000 German citizens were leaving Germany every year to live in the USA. An estimated 1.1 million people speak German in the United States today. The "German Belt" stretches from Alabama across the Midwest to Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.

Canada is also very popular with emigrants. Over 400,000 Germans have emigrated to the country since the 1940s. A total of about 430,000 people speak German there. Founded in the middle of the 18th century, Lunenburg is officially the oldest German settlement in Canada. The port town in Nova Scotia has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995.

Ten percent of all Brazilians have German ancestors, who emigrated to Brazil for economic and social reasons in the 19th and 20th centuries. Some 1.1 million people in Brazil speak German. The city of Blumenau, founded in 1850, hosts the largest Oktoberfest outside of Germany. It also has a museum showing how German immigrants lived there at the beginning of the 20th century.

In the first half of the 20th century, Germans carried their language to many South and Central American countries. In Argentina, 400,000 people are estimated to speak the language today. The mountain village of Villa General Belgrano attracts tourists with its German delicacies. Nearby, the wooden houses of the hamlet of La Cumbrecita are also reminiscent of traditional Bavarian architecture.

Paraguay, where 166,000 people still speak German today, has also been a popular emigration country for more than a century. Among them was Bernhard Förster, who founded Nueva Germania in 1887, which aimed to an "Aryan" settlement. The colony of the anti-Semite, who was married to the sister of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, failed; he committed suicide. A museum recall the town's origins.

Even though Namibia was once a German colony, there are only 20,000 people among the country's 2.5 million inhabitants who speak German today. Traces of the language can still be noticed, such as this concert hall in Lüderitz, a town named after a controversial colonial figure. Beyond this list, the German language is spoken in 45 countries; there are even 100 German speakers in Papua New Guinea.