Bambara speaking countries
Bambara is no official language in any country, but is spoken as a mother tongue in nine countries by a minor part of the population. The Bambara language (native name: bamanankan) has its roots in the Niger–Congo language family.As a percentage of the total population, the largest share of around 46 percent is in Mali. A total of about 16.4 million people worldwide speak Bambara as their mother tongue.
| Country | Region | Official language | Distribution | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mali | Western Africa | no | 46.3 % | 10,142,000 |
| Ivory Coast | Western Africa | no | 8.4 % | 2,308,000 |
| Senegal | Western Africa | no | 10.3 % | 1,738,000 |
| Burkina Faso | Western Africa | no | 4.8 % | 1,061,000 |
| Gambia | Western Africa | no | 21.1 % | 557,000 |
| Guinea | Western Africa | no | 2.0 % | 271,000 |
| Sierra Leone | Western Africa | no | 1.6 % | 135,000 |
| Guinea-Bissau | Western Africa | no | 5.1 % | 105,000 |
| Liberia | Western Africa | no | 2.0 % | 104,000 |
Unless otherwise described in the text, this page is about native speakers — not the total number of speakers. How many people understand or speak Bambara as a subsequently learned language is not the subject of this page. Countries where native speakers make up only a few thousand, or even a few hundred people, or countries with a percentage well below 1% are unlikely to be listed here.