Spanish language in the United States

Spanish is the second most spoken language in the United States, after English. Approximately 45 million people aged five or older speak Spanish at home, representing about 14% of the U.S. population.^[3] Broader estimates place the total number of Spanish speakers—including native speakers, heritage speakers, and second-language speakers—at around 59 million, or roughly 18% of the population.^[4][5][6] The North American Academy of the Spanish Language (Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española) serves as the official institution dedicated to the promotion and regulation of the Spanish language in the United States.^[7]

In the United States, the number of Hispanophones exceeds the combined total of speakers of French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Hawaiian, the Indo-Aryan languages, the various varieties of Chinese, Arabic and the Native American languages. The U.S. also has the second largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, after Mexico.^[8] According to the 2024 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, 44.9 million people aged five or older speak Spanish at home — more than twice as many as in 1990.^[3] Spanish is also the most studied language in the United States after English,^[9] with approximately 8 million students enrolled in Spanish courses at various educational levels. The use and importance of Spanish in the United States has increased significantly as Hispanics are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the country. While the proportion of Hispanics who use Spanish in major urban areas has declined, the absolute number of Spanish speakers nationwide, as well as the use of Spanish at home, continues to grow annually.^[10]

Spanish has been spoken in what is now the United States since the 15th century, with the arrival of Spanish colonization in North America. Colonizers settled in areas that would later become Florida, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California as well as in what is now the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The Spanish explorers explored areas of 42 of the future US states leaving behind a varying range of Hispanic legacy in North America. Western regions of the Louisiana Territory were also under Spanish rule between 1763 and 1800, after the French and Indian War, which further extended Spanish influences throughout what is now the United States. These areas were incorporated into the United States in the first half of the 19th century, and the first constitutions of the states of California and New Mexico were written in both Spanish and English.^[11] Spanish was later reinforced in the country by the acquisition of Puerto Rico in 1898. Despite the rise of the English-only movement, Hispanophone publications resisted the acculturation to Anglo-Saxon culture and the English language,^[12] and waves of immigration from Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, El Salvador, and elsewhere in Hispanic America have strengthened the prominence of Spanish in the country to the present day.