Between 322 and 400 million people natively speak Spanish, making it the most spoken Romance language, and possibly the second most-spoken language by native speakers.
Mexico has the world's largest Spanish-speaking population, and Spanish is the second most-widely spoken language in the United States and the most popular studied foreign language in US schools and universities. Spanish is among the most popular foreign languages for study in the rest of the nations of the Anglosphere besides the global use of the many countries and territory that Spanish allows exploring attracts many people. Smaller numbers also learn the language for potentially generous business and employment ventures, although this is largely confined to the United States. Due to proximity, linguistic similarities, and trade reasons it is also a very popular second language in France, Italy, Portugal, and particularly the southern states of Brazil. It is estimated that the combined total of native and non-native Spanish speakers is approximately 500 million, likely making it the fourth most spoken language by total number of speakers. Global internet usage statistics for 2007 show Spanish as the third most commonly used language on the internet, after English and Chinese.
