Catalonia · The Catalan language, 2003–2023

# 5.45 million adults in Catalonia can speak Catalan. Seven in ten switch when answered in Spanish.

In 2023 Catalonia, the region around Barcelona in north-east Spain, had 870,000 more adults who could speak Catalan than in 2003. The number who used it as their usual language, alone or alongside Spanish, was 2.85 million, about the same as in 2003. The language survey run by Idescat, Catalonia's statistics institute, and the Catalan government also shows what happens in conversation: when answered in Spanish, most Catalan speakers switch.

- **5.45 million** adults can speak Catalan (80.4% of all adults; 4.58 million in 2003)
- **2.85 million** use it as their usual language (alone or with Spanish; 2.85 million in 2003)
- **70%** switch to Spanish when answered in it (of those who can speak Catalan)

By [Marius Comper](https://mariuscomper.uk/) · 20 October 2026 · Data: Idescat and the Generalitat de Catalunya, language-use survey, five waves 2003–2023. “Adults” means people aged 15 or over.

## What do Catalan speakers do when someone answers them in Spanish?

Every five years Idescat and the Generalitat's language department ask several thousand adults how they use their languages; in the 2023 round, whose fieldwork ran from September 2023 to April 2024, 8,682 answered. One question describes a moment everyone in Catalonia knows. You start a conversation in Catalan, and the other person replies in Spanish. What do you do next?

You started in Catalan. The answer came in Spanish. What would you usually do?

In 2023, of every 100 people who could speak Catalan, by their own account, 70 switch to Spanish, 13 carry on in Catalan, 2 ask to be answered in Catalan and 12 never start a conversation in Catalan.

Carry on in Catalan **13**; Ask to be answered in Catalan **2**; Switch to Spanish **70**; Never start in Catalan **12**; Other, no answer or not published **3**

*Each dot is one in every 100 people of the chosen group who can speak Catalan. In 2023, 5,454,700 people. Idescat files these answers under “Actitud en iniciar una conversa en català i rebre resposta en castellà”: what people do when they start a conversation in Catalan and are answered in Spanish. Source: Idescat and Generalitat, EULP tables 3179, 3177 and 3085.*

In 2023, 70% of the people who can speak Catalan said they switch to Spanish. 13% carry on in Catalan and 2% ask whether the other person could speak to them in Catalan. Another 12% said they never start a conversation in Catalan at all. These shares are of everyone who can speak Catalan, including those who never start in Catalan; of the people who do start in Catalan, 80% say they switch.

Most of the people who switch were born in Catalonia: 2.90 million of the 3.84 million. Among Catalan speakers born there, 75% say they switch. Among those born elsewhere in Spain (62%) or abroad (58%) the share is lower, largely because many of them never open in Catalan in the first place (27% and 29%). Leaving out those who never start in Catalan, the share who switch is 85% among those born elsewhere in Spain and 82% among those born abroad, against 79% among those born in Catalonia.

The young switch most: 75% of speakers aged 15 to 29, against 61% of those aged 65 or over. Switching has become less common since 2018, when 82% of the young and 76% of all speakers did it. Over the same five years the share who carry on in Catalan rose only from 12% to 13%, while the share who never start in Catalan rose from 9% to 12%.

A second question shows the same reflex from the other side. Asked how often they start conversations in Catalan, 22% of all adults said always and 28% never. Among people aged 15 to 29 only 16% always start in Catalan; among those aged 65 or over, 36%.

*Catalonia's 6.79 million adults as 100 people, 2023. Each dot is about 68,000 people.*

## How many people in Catalonia speak Catalan?

Shrink Catalonia's 6.79 million adults to 100 people.

**93 understand Catalan.** Almost everyone who lives in Catalonia can follow it.

**80 can speak it.** That is 5.45 million people, a larger number than in any earlier survey.

**29 have Catalan alone as their first language**, and 6 have both Catalan and Spanish. The survey defines a first language as the language, or languages, a person first spoke at home.

**33 use Catalan as their usual language**, and 9 more name Catalan and Spanish together. Catalan gains people between childhood and adulthood: more have it as their usual language than as their first.

**24 speak no Catalan at all on an ordinary day**, by their own estimate. 5 speak nothing else.

## Has Catalan gained speakers since 2003?

In number, yes. Between 2003 and 2023 the number of adults who can speak Catalan rose from 4.58 million to 5.45 million, and it grew in every survey. Over the same years the adult population grew by 1.17 million, so the share who can speak it barely moved: 81.6% in 2003, 80.4% in 2023.

Use did not follow. The number who call Catalan alone their usual language fell from 2.58 million to 2.21 million, or from 46% to 33% of adults. Add those who name Catalan and Spanish together and the total is 2.85 million in 2003 and 2.85 million in 2023. In every survey in between it stayed between 2.70 million and 2.93 million.

**Adults in Catalonia, millions**

The number of adults who could speak Catalan rose from 4.58 million in 2003 to 5.45 million in 2023. Adults whose usual language was Catalan, or Catalan and Spanish: 2.85 million in 2003, 2.85 million in 2023.

| Adults in Catalonia, millions | 2003 | 2008 | 2013 | 2018 | 2023 |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| All adults (15+) | 5.62 | 6.16 | 6.25 | 6.39 | 6.79 |
| Can speak Catalan | 4.58 | 4.82 | 5.03 | 5.19 | 5.45 |
| Usual language Catalan, or Catalan and Spanish | 2.85 | 2.93 | 2.70 | 2.78 | 2.85 |
| Usual language Catalan only | 2.58 | 2.20 | 2.27 | 2.31 | 2.21 |

*Can speak: people who say they can speak Catalan. Usual language: the language people say they speak most, recorded as Catalan, Spanish, both or another. Source: Idescat and Generalitat, EULP tables 10364 and 10367; 2003 as Idescat recalculated it to compare with later waves.*

The line between “Catalan” and “both” is not fixed. The share naming both languages jumped from 5% in 2003 to 12% in 2008 and fell back to 7% in 2013, which suggests that people, or the questionnaires, drew the line differently in different years. That is why the total of the two is the steadier measure. The 2003 and 2023 totals differ by only 2,700 people, far less than the survey's margin of error of about one percentage point of adults, and in 2023 1.5% of answers record no usual language at all. The 2023 tables also count people who name Catalan together with a language other than Spanish, with or without Spanish as well: 74,100 of them. Counting them too gives 2.92 million.

## Who are the 1.17 million extra adults?

All of the net growth came from adults born abroad. The number of adults born outside Spain rose from 463,500 in 2003 to 1.66 million in 2023, from 8% of the adult population to 25%. Over the same twenty years the number born in Spain, in Catalonia or elsewhere, fell by 34,900.

Half of the adults born abroad (50.5%) say they can speak Catalan; so do 63% of those born elsewhere in Spain and 98% of those born in Catalonia. Few adults born abroad name Catalan alone as their usual language: 4%.

**First languages other than Catalan and Spanish, adults in Catalonia, 2023**

- Arabic 179,600 first · 74,200 usual
- Romanian 73,400 first · 20,800 usual
- Portuguese 51,200 first · – usual
- Amazigh (Berber) 45,600 first · 24,500 usual
- French 45,000 first · 21,600 usual
- Galician 41,300 first · – usual
- Italian 41,200 first · – usual
- English 35,900 first · 40,000 usual
- Chinese 32,400 first · – usual
- Russian 32,200 first · – usual
- Urdu 28,900 first · – usual
- Aranese 1,600 first · 1,400 usual

*Adults who report each language as their first language, and adults who report it as their usual language. The chart shows the languages for which the survey publishes separate 2023 figures; another 193,400 adults have first languages it groups as “other”. A dash means Idescat does not publish the figure because fewer than 20 respondents gave that answer. Source: EULP table 10364.*

Arabic is the commonest of these first languages, with 179,600 speakers, followed by Romanian with 73,400. Fewer name them as their usual language: 74,200 adults name Arabic and 20,800 name Romanian.

Arrivals are not the whole story, though. Among adults born in Catalonia, the share who name Catalan alone as their usual language fell from 66% in 2003 to 51% in 2023, while the share naming both languages rose from 5% to 13%. Taken together, the share whose usual language is Catalan, alone or with Spanish, fell from 71% to 64%.

## Does Catalan win or lose between childhood and adulthood?

It wins. In 2023, 1.97 million adults had Catalan alone as their first language and 2.21 million had it alone as their usual language. More people move towards Catalan than away from it: 293,600 adults whose first language was Spanish used Catalan as their usual language in 2023, and 280,500 more used both. Going the other way, 88,300 adults whose first language was Catalan named Spanish as their usual language, and 110,700 named both.

**From first language to usual language, adults, 2023**

- **First language Catalan** 1.97 million Usual language in 2023: Catalan 1,737,700 · both 110,700 · Spanish 88,300 · other or not published 30,600
- **First languages Catalan and Spanish** 0.38 million Usual language in 2023: Catalan 100,400 · both 211,400 · Spanish 61,000 · other or not published 5,900
- **First language Spanish** 3.34 million Usual language in 2023: Catalan 293,600 · both 280,500 · Spanish 2,689,600 · other or not published 71,700
- **Another first language, a mix, or first language not recorded** 1.10 million Usual language in 2023: Catalan 79,400 · both 33,900 · Spanish 315,800 · other or not published 674,600

*Each bar is a first-language group, split by the usual language its members reported in 2023. Bars share one scale. “Other or not published” includes other languages and cells Idescat does not publish. The last bar also holds people whose first languages were Spanish or Catalan plus another language, and those whose first language was not recorded. Source: EULP table 4951.*

The gain is smaller than it was. In 2018, 353,200 adults whose first language was Spanish used Catalan as their usual language.

In every age group from 30 up, the share who speak only Catalan with their eldest child is higher than the share who speak only Catalan with their mother. Among people aged 45 to 64, 28% speak only Catalan with their mother; among those of the same age who have or have had children, 35% speak only Catalan with their eldest child. The two shares rest on different bases, all adults for the mother and those who have or have had children for the eldest child, so the gap does not prove that the same people changed language.

**Speak only Catalan with…, by age of the person answering, 2023**

Aged 30 to 44:
  - with their mother 22%
  - with their eldest child 26%
Aged 45 to 64:
  - with their mother 28%
  - with their eldest child 35%
Aged 65 or over:
  - with their mother 36%
  - with their eldest child 42%

*Share of each age group who speak only Catalan with their mother, and share of those with children who speak only Catalan with their eldest child. The youngest group, aged 15 to 29, is left out: Idescat does not publish its eldest-child figure for Catalan alone. Source: EULP table 20914.*

## Where in Catalonia is Catalan the usual language?

In the south and the interior. In the Terres de l'Ebre, around the Ebro delta, 67% of adults use Catalan alone as their usual language; in the Comarques Centrals, around Manresa and Vic, 60%. In the metropolitan area around Barcelona, home to 4.31 million of Catalonia's 6.79 million adults, it is 25%, and in the city of Barcelona 27%.

**Usual language of adults, by planning area, 2023**

- Terres de l'Ebre 67% Catalan; Catalan and Spanish 6%; Spanish 16%
- Central counties 60% Catalan; Catalan and Spanish 8%; Spanish 21%
- Ponent (Lleida) 51% Catalan; Catalan and Spanish 7%; Spanish 26%
- High Pyrenees and Aran 51% Catalan; Catalan and Spanish 8%; Spanish 28%
- Girona counties 45% Catalan; Catalan and Spanish 9%; Spanish 32%
- Camp de Tarragona 38% Catalan; Catalan and Spanish 10%; Spanish 41%
- Penedès 35% Catalan; Catalan and Spanish 12%; Spanish 44%
- Metropolitan area 25% Catalan; Catalan and Spanish 9%; Spanish 55%
- of which Barcelona city 27% Catalan; Catalan and Spanish 10%; Spanish 47%

*The eight territorial planning areas the survey reports, plus the city of Barcelona, which is part of the metropolitan area. Source: EULP tables 3202 and 21431; Idescat's own release gives the same Catalan-only shares.*

## How much of what people say in a day is in Catalan?

The survey asks people to estimate what share of their daily speech is in Catalan. In 2023 the commonest answer was none: 1.63 million adults, 24%. That is up from 19.5% in 2008, though slightly below the 25.4% of 2013. At the other end, 5% said all of their daily speech is in Catalan.

**Adults by the share of what they say in a day that is in Catalan**

24% of adults speak no Catalan on an ordinary day (19.5% in 2008); 5% speak only Catalan.

- 0%: 24%
- 1–10%: 13%
- 11–20%: 6%
- 21–30%: 7%
- 31–40%: 6%
- 41–50%: 10%
- 51–60%: 4%
- 61–70%: 5%
- 71–80%: 7%
- 81–90%: 7%
- 91–99%: 5%
- 100%: 5%

*Bars: 2023, as a share of all adults, rounded. Ticks: 2008. Source: EULP table 21001.*

## What the survey cannot show

- **It records what people say they do.** Nobody listens in on the conversations; the switch figures are people's own account of their habits.
- **It does not ask why.** Switching can be politeness, habit or the wish to be understood. The figures show how common it is, not its motive.
- **Small groups are hidden.** Idescat withholds any figure based on fewer than 20 respondents, so some cells are blank and some totals here are slightly short.
- **The method changed.** The 2003 survey used telephone interviews only; face-to-face interviews were added in 2008, and since 2013 people have also been able to answer online. Idescat recalculated 2003 so that it can be compared with later waves, and every 2003 figure on this page is the recalculated one, which may differ from what was first published in 2003; the shifts in the “both” answer are a reminder that comparability has limits.
- **It covers Catalonia only.** Catalan is also spoken in Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Andorra and elsewhere; none of that is counted here. The margin of error for the 2023 sample, for Catalonia as a whole, is about one percentage point.

If the five-year rhythm holds, the next survey will be in 2028. The number of people who can speak Catalan has risen in every wave so far. What the next one will show is whether they keep speaking it after the first reply.

## Sources and method

Every figure on this page comes from the [Enquesta d'usos lingüístics de la població](https://www.idescat.cat/estad/eulp?lang=en) (EULP, the Survey on Language Uses of the Population), the official five-yearly survey of language use by Idescat and the Generalitat de Catalunya's language department, covering residents of Catalonia aged 15 or over. Counts are Idescat's weighted estimates, published in thousands of people; percentages and differences are Marius Comper's arithmetic on those counts, and match the percentages Idescat publishes where it publishes them. In the conversation grid each answer gets the same whole percent the text prints (rounded half up) and the rest, those with no answer, interrupted or unpublished, fills the remainder; the 100-adult grid uses the largest-remainder method so that it adds up to 100. The 2023 sample was 8,682 people, interviewed from September 2023 to April 2024.

- [First, identification and usual language, 2003–2023](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=10364&lang=en) (table 10364) and [Knowledge of Catalan, 2003–2023](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=10367&lang=en) (table 10367)
- [What people do when answered in Spanish](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=3179&lang=en) (3179), [by age](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=3177&lang=en) (3177) and [by birthplace](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=3085&lang=en) (3085)
- [How often people start conversations in Catalan](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=7341&lang=en) (7341) and [by age](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=7345&lang=en) (7345)
- [Usual language by birthplace](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=2989&lang=en) (2989) and the [linked 2003–2013 series](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=7225&lang=en) (7225)
- [Knowledge of languages by birthplace](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=20832&lang=en) (20832)
- [Usual language by first language](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=4951&lang=en) (4951)
- [Language with mother, father, partner and eldest child, by age](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=20914&lang=en) (20914)
- [Usual language by planning area](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=3202&lang=en) (3202), [by survey stratum, including Barcelona city](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=21431&lang=en) (21431) and [Idescat's release on the territorial results](https://idescat.cat/novetats/?id=5382), 27 November 2025
- [Daily share of spoken use of Catalan](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&n=21001&lang=en) (21001)
- [Methodology](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?id=eulp&m=m): sample design, collection methods, the 2003 recalculation and the 20-respondent rule

Tables downloaded on 20 October 2026. Idescat last updated them between 19 February and 27 November 2025; the linked 2003–2013 series dates from June 2014. Charts, percentages and dots: Marius Comper, created upon the basis of Idescat's own data. Spanish here means Castilian (castellà), the word the survey uses.

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Web version: https://mariuscomper.uk/who-speaks-catalan/