Kinyarwanda speaking countries
Kinyarwanda is one out of two official languages in Rwanda and is spoken in 2 other countries as monther tongue by a part of the population. The Kinyarwanda language (native name: Ikinyarwanda) has its roots in the Niger–Congo language family.As a percentage of the total population, the largest share of around 93 percent is in Rwanda. A total of about 23.9 million people worldwide speak Kinyarwanda as their mother tongue.
| Country | Region | Official language | Distribution | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rwanda | Eastern Africa | yes | 93.2 % | 12,546,000 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo | Central Africa | no | 10.3 % | 9,877,000 |
| Uganda | Eastern Africa | no | 3.2 % | 1,467,000 |
Unless otherwise described in the text, this page is about native speakers — not the total number of speakers. How many people understand or speak Kinyarwanda 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.