The official language in all African countries

The official language in all African countries : African peoples use nearly 2,000 different languages, the most important of which are Arabic in the north of the continent and Swahili and French in sub-Saharan Africa.

Of the 54 countries, these three languages are official in 34 countries, and together they have more than 400 million speakers, almost a third of the continent's population.

Below we take a quick look at the official languages of all African countries.

An overview of the official languages of Africa

Many African countries use more than one official language, including some Arab countries such as Morocco and Algeria , where Tamazight is official alongside Arabic.

Arabic is the official language in these countries in Africa:

Algeria
Comoros
Chad (non-Arab country)
Djibouti
Egypt
Libya
Eritrea (non-Arab country)
Tunisia
Mauritania
Morocco
Somalia
Sudan

What is the largest Arabic-speaking country?

Egypt holds the record for the largest Arabic-speaking population at around 97,553,151 speakers, followed by Algeria at 41,318,142, then Sudan at 40,533,330, then Iraq at 38,274,618 and Morocco at 35,74.

French is the only official language in these countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is the largest French-speaking country in the world.

Other countries where French is an official language are:

Democratic Republic of the Congo
Madagascar
Cameroon
Ivory Coast
Niger
Burkina Faso
Mali
Senegal
Chad
Guinea
Rwanda
Burundi
Benin
Togo
Central African Republic
Republic of the Congo
Gabon
Djibouti
Equatorial Guinea
Comor
Seychelles

There are approximately 434 million people throughout the world who speak French. However, the country with highest French speaking population is not France. Instead, an African nation, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, tops the list with a total of more than 77 million people. France ranks second, with approximately 67 million people. Madagascar and Cameroon, with 24 million and 23 million people, respectively, rank fourth and fifth.

In the top five African states with the most French speakers, the Ivory Coast is fourth, after Cameroon, with an estimated 22 million speakers. Niger ranks fifth, with an estimated 19 million people. It is interesting to note that African countries dominate the world list by occupying positions four to 13 consecutively.

The most common languages in Africa

The most spoken language in Africa is Arabic, with an estimated number of speakers from 150 to 200 million people, the majority of whom live in North Africa.

French ranks second with 120 million speakers, followed by Swahili with 100 million speakers, Hausa with 40 million speakers, and then Yoruba language with 30 million speakers.

The Berber language is used by about 23 million people living in all Arab countries in the north of the continent, mainly in the Maghreb countries .