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Picture Languages

Quechua speaking countries

Quechua is an official language in Bolivia and Peru and is spoken in 5 other countries as monther tongue by a part of the population. The Quechua language (native name: Runa Simi, Kichwa) has its roots in the Quechuan language family.

With 4.38 million native speakers, Quechua has the highest prevalence in Peru. As a percentage of the total population, the largest share of around 23 percent is in Bolivia. A total of about 8.4 million people worldwide speak Quechua as their mother tongue.
Distribution Quechua

CountryRegionOfficial languageDistributionTotal
PeruSouth Americayes13.0 %4,383,000
BoliviaSouth Americayes22.6 %2,730,000
EcuadorSouth Americano4.1 %730,000
BrazilSouth Americano0.1 %214,000
ArgentinaSouth Americano0.4 %183,000
ChileSouth Americano0.8 %156,000
ColombiaSouth Americano0.1 %52,000



Unless otherwise described in the text, this page is about native speakers — not the total number of speakers. How many people understand or speak Quechua 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.