Danish is spoken mainly in Denmark, and also in Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and as a protected minority language in the Southern Schleswig region of northern Germany.

Main Danish-speaking places

  • Denmark – Danish is the official language and the native language of most of the country’s roughly 5.8–5.9 million inhabitants.
  • Greenland – Part of the Kingdom of Denmark; Danish is widely taught in schools and used as a second language alongside Greenlandic.
  • Faroe Islands – Also in the Danish realm; Faroese is primary, but Danish is an official language and compulsory in education.
  • Southern Schleswig (northern Germany) – Danish is a recognized and protected minority language with tens of thousands of speakers.

Other Danish-speaking communities

Smaller Danish-speaking communities exist outside these core areas, often due to migration and historical ties.

You can find notable groups of Danish speakers in countries such as:

  • Sweden and Norway (especially near Denmark and in some migrant communities)
  • Iceland and Finland, where Danish is often learned as a foreign or regional language in schools
  • United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and a few other countries with Danish diaspora communities.

Quick FAQ style notes

  • If you ask “where do they speak Danish” in an everyday sense, people usually mean Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands.
  • If you include minority and heritage communities, Danish reaches into northern Germany, other Nordic countries, and scattered diaspora groups in the Americas and beyond.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.