In most countries around the world, there are one or two dominant languages that are spoken. But that's certainly not the case everywhere.
Visual above comes from Our World in Data and leverages data from Ethnologue from 2024.
There's a place where only a small percentage of people live in cities (13 percent) and everyone else lives in remote rural locations, sometimes on small, far away islands or in tribal villages. And in this place, there are not one or two languages, but 840 languages thriving. That place is Papua New Guinea, and it takes the honour of being the most linguistically diverse country on the planet.
Indonesia shares the same main land mass of Papua New Guinea, so it’s not surprising to see it next on the list with 710 living languages being spoken across the entire archipelago. However, a key difference is population - Indonesia has nearly 30 times the population, making it less “language dense” per capita.
So, what countries follow these two into the Top 10 most linguistically diverse nations?
Nigeria 530
India 453
China 306
Mexico 293
Cameroon 279
U.S 236
Australia 224
Brazil 222