For some reason I went in thinking this was only countries where Spanish was the main language. Only at the end did I realize it wasn't a requirement and immediately realized the missing answer was the US.
Well yes, there are people in Spain who have a different mother language than Castilian Spanish, but they should count in these numbers because everyone in Spain speaks Castilian Spanish as well.
Or look at the percentage, Spain only has 74%. It's kinda ironic, how the country that the language originate from has second lowest percentage of it's native speakers.
I was in Florida this year and almost everyone there speaks Spanish. When I was in a store or on a market and people started talking to me, it was always in Spanish first and when I didn't respond (no hablo español) they tried English second
I'm assuming you mean southern Florida. I haven't been there but I've heard that Southern Florida is very diverse with many people from all over but Spanish speaking people make up the main groups (Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, Venezuelans) whereas in Northern Florida it's mainly English speaking Southerners. I've heard North Florida being called South Georgia because of how much more like Georgia it is compared to southern Florida.
I think Guatemala has more Spanish speakers than Cuba. Cuba only has about 11 million people. Guatemala has about 16 million. And 93% of the people there speak Spanish. That is about 15 million people.
I would never have guessed the USA. I suppose that, as usual, you are not including territories. Therefore, Puerto Rico is out. Given that, how can the USA have more native Spanish speakers than Venezuela and Spain?
I think the percentage is more important to look at when comparing USA to Spain and Venezuela. The US is only 13% of the population as opposed to the 74% and 98% of Spain and Venezuela, respectively.
I'm pretty sure you messed up Venezuela and Peru. Peru's population has been growing steadily over 30 million, while Venezuelans are fleeing in the millions from the socialist regime in Venezuela. Around 600 thousand Venezuelans are in Peru alone (I live here, venezuelans everywhere).
It's missing almost 10 million native speakers in Spain, just cause they are bilingual it doesn't mean that they aren't native Spanish speaker, nobody considers a Catalan or a Basque person to be non native speakers of the Spanish language...
The reason 25% of the population may not be counted is because they aren't all native speakers. There may also be regions that have less or no Spanish speakers.
Spain hosts a significant number of immigrants from Morocco, Moldova and Romania whose native language isn't Spanish. Also, Castellano (Spanish) isn't the native/mother tongue of Galicians, Basques and Catalans.
Completely agree with those saying that Spain has as many Spanish speakers as inhabitants. All Spaniards speak Spanish, regardless of their mother tongue being Catalan, Basque or Galician.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Guatemala