Ethnic German-speaking communities are much more widespread than you may have imagined. While many people don’t consider German a world language at the same level as English or Spanish, that doesn’t mean you can’t find German-speaking populations all over the globe.

Once upon a time, when the USA was very young, there was a chance that German, not English, was going to be made the official language of the United States (although this is a bit of an urban legend). Try and picture how important German language translation would have become if that had actually been the case.

So outside of Germany and Austria, where is German recognized as an official major language, or a significant minority language? Here is a list of some places where you can find German spoken by different communities of varying sizes:

Austria – official language

Belgium – shared official language

Denmark (Northern Schleswig) – minority tongue

Germany – official language (of course)

Hungary – minority tongue

Italy (South Tyrol) – official regional tongue

Liechtenstein – official language

Luxembourg  – shared official language

Poland  (Opole Voivodeship) – minority tongue

Switzerland  – shared official language

Slovakia (Krahule) – minority tongue

You’ll also find the need for German language translation in places as far away from one another as Namibia and Tanzania are from Argentina and Brazil. German settlers made their way to locations all over the planet — and they took their German language and many of their German customs with them. The German diaspora has been particularly strong in Latin America as well as areas bordering Germany’s historical spheres of influence in Europe.