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Visualizing the Most Used Languages on the Internet

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most used languages on the internet

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The Briefing

  • English is the most common language online, used by 60.4% of the top 10M websites
  • China has the most internet users in the world but only 1.4% of the top 10M websites use Chinese

The Most Used Languages on the Internet

Online content on the world wide web is consumed in thousands of different languages.

Some are more common than others, but it’s interesting to see that the online use of a language doesn’t always reflect how many people speak it. For example, Hindi is the third most spoken language worldwide, but it isn’t one of the top languages used on the internet.

Here’s a look at the top 20 most used languages on the internet, compared to their real-world use among the global population.

RankLanguage% of Top 10M WebsitesShare of Speaking Population
1English60.4%16.2%
2Russian8.5%3.3%
3Spanish4.0%6.9%
4Turkish3.7%1.1%
5Persian3.0%0.7%
6French2.6%3.5%
7German2.4%1.7%
8Japanese2.1%1.6%
9Vietnamese1.7%1.0%
10Simplified Chinese1.4%14.3%
11Portuguese1.3%3.2%
12Standard Arabic1.1%3.5%
13Italian0.8%0.9%
14Indonesian0.7%2.5%
15Greek0.7%0.2%
16Polish0.6%0.6%
17Dutch0.6%0.3%
18Korean0.6%1.0%
19Thai0.5%0.8%
20Ukrainian0.4%0.5%

“Share of speaking population” refers to the percentage of the global population that identifies as a speaker of a particular language, either as their native tongue or a second language. Data as of January 2021.

English is by far the most commonly used language online, used by 60.4%, or about six million of the top 10 million websites. Not surprisingly, it’s also the most spoken language worldwide, with over 1.13 billion speakers.

By contrast, Chinese is spoken by 14.3% of the global population–more than 1.11 billion people—but it’s only used by 1.4% of the top 10 million websites.

Interestingly, Russian takes the second spot in the ranking in part due to the significant online presence of Runet, the internet’s Russian language community. Furthermore, it’s also the official language of multiple countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

The Future of Languages on the Web

Although it’s likely that English and Russian will continue to dominate the web, Asian languages have the highest potential for growth in internet usage.

With an untapped audience of more than 1 billion people, the share of languages like Chinese and Arabic may grow alongside the region’s online population.

Where does this data come from?

Source: W3Techs, Ethnologue, and the United Nations via Hootsuite
Details: Based on the top 10 million websites by traffic rankings from Alexa.com.

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Money

Charted: Public Trust in the Federal Reserve

Public trust in the Federal Reserve chair has hit its lowest point in 20 years. Get the details in this infographic.

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The Briefing

  • Gallup conducts an annual poll to gauge the U.S. public’s trust in the Federal Reserve
  • After rising during the COVID-19 pandemic, public trust has fallen to a 20-year low

 

Charted: Public Trust in the Federal Reserve

Each year, Gallup conducts a survey of American adults on various economic topics, including the country’s central bank, the Federal Reserve.

More specifically, respondents are asked how much confidence they have in the current Fed chairman to do or recommend the right thing for the U.S. economy. We’ve visualized these results from 2001 to 2023 to see how confidence levels have changed over time.

Methodology and Results

The data used in this infographic is also listed in the table below. Percentages reflect the share of respondents that have either a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence.

YearFed chair% Great deal or Fair amount
2023Jerome Powell36%
2022Jerome Powell43%
2021Jerome Powell55%
2020Jerome Powell58%
2019Jerome Powell50%
2018Jerome Powell45%
2017Janet Yellen45%
2016Janet Yellen38%
2015Janet Yellen42%
2014Janet Yellen37%
2013Ben Bernanke42%
2012Ben Bernanke39%
2011Ben Bernanke41%
2010Ben Bernanke44%
2009Ben Bernanke49%
2008Ben Bernanke47%
2007Ben Bernanke50%
2006Ben Bernanke41%
2005Alan Greenspan56%
2004Alan Greenspan61%
2003Alan Greenspan65%
2002Alan Greenspan69%
2001Alan Greenspan74%

Data for 2023 collected April 3-25, with this statement put to respondents: “Please tell me how much confidence you have [in the Fed chair] to recommend the right thing for the economy.”

We can see that trust in the Federal Reserve has fluctuated significantly in recent years.

For example, under Alan Greenspan, trust was initially high due to the relative stability of the economy. The burst of the dotcom bubble—which some attribute to Greenspan’s easy credit policies—resulted in a sharp decline.

On the flip side, public confidence spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was likely due to Jerome Powell’s decisive actions to provide support to the U.S. economy throughout the crisis.

Measures implemented by the Fed include bringing interest rates to near zero, quantitative easing (buying government bonds with newly-printed money), and emergency lending programs to businesses.

Confidence Now on the Decline

After peaking at 58%, those with a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the Fed chair have tumbled to 36%, the lowest number in 20 years.

This is likely due to Powell’s hard stance on fighting post-pandemic inflation, which has involved raising interest rates at an incredible speed. While these rate hikes may be necessary, they also have many adverse effects:

  • Negative impact on the stock market
  • Increases the burden for those with variable-rate debts
  • Makes mortgages and home buying less affordable

Higher rates have also prompted many U.S. tech companies to shrink their workforces, and have been a factor in the regional banking crisis, including the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Where does this data come from?

Source: Gallup (2023)

Data Notes: Results are based on telephone interviews conducted April 3-25, 2023, with a random sample of –1,013—adults, ages 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on this sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. See source for details.

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