85 Nationalities in Spanish and How to Discuss Them

Learning how to talk about nationalities in Spanish is important if you want to connect with people from different countries. Spanish uses specific rules for nationalities as adjectives and nouns, and these words must match gender and number—while also following unique capitalization conventions.

Below we’ve compiled a list of over 85 nationalities in Spanish, along with practical tips and example sentences to help you use them confidently in conversation.

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Nationalities in Spanish

Where applicable, we’ve provided both the masculine and feminine forms of the word. As you’ll see, some nationalities only have one form for both masculine and feminine nouns (more on this later). 

English	Spanish
African	africano / africana
Albanian	albanés / albanesa
American (from the United States)	estadounidense
Argentinean	argentino / argentina
Armenian	armenio / armenia
Australian	Australiano / Australiana
Austrian	austríaco / austríaca
Belgian	belga
Belizean	beliceño / beliceña
Bolivian	boliviano / boliviana
Brazilian	brasileño / brasileña
Bulgarian	búlgaro / búlgara
Canadian	canadiense
Chilean	chileno / chilena
Chinese	chino / china
Colombian	colombiano / colombiana
Costa Rican	costarricense
Croatian	croata
Cuban	cubano / cubana
Czech	checo / checa
Danish	danés / danesa
Dominican	dominicano / dominicana
Dutch	neerlandés / neerlandesa
Ecuadorian	ecuatoriano / ecuatoriana
Egyptian	egipcio / egipcia
English	inglés / inglesa
Estonian	estonio / estonia
Ethiopian	etíope
Finnish	finlandés / finlandesa
French	francés / francesa
German	alemán / alemana
Greek	griego / griega
Greenlandic	groenlandés / groenlandesa
Guatemalan	guatemalteco / guatemalteca
Haitian	haitiano / haitiana
Honduran	hondureño / hondureña
Hungarian	húngaro / húngara
Icelandic	islandés / islandesa
Indian	indio / india
Indonesian	indonesio / indonesia
Iraqi	iraquí
Irish	irlandés / irlandesa
Israeli	israelí
Italian	italiano / italiana
Japanese	japonés / japonesa
Kenyan	keniano / keniana
Korean	coreano / coreana
Latvian	letón / letona
Lithuanian	lituano / lituana
Luxembourgish	luxemburgués / luxemburguesa
Malaysian	malasio / malasia
Maltese	maltés / maltesa
Mexican	mexicano / mexicana
Moroccan	marroquí
New Zealander	neozelandés / neozelandesa
Nicaraguan	nicaragüense
Nigerian	nigeriano / nigeriana
North American	norteamericano / norteamericana
Norwegian	noruego / noruega
Pakistani	pakistaní
Panamanian	panameño / panameña
Paraguayan	paraguayo / paraguaya
Peruvian	peruano / peruana
Philippine	filipino / filipina
Polish	polaco / polaca
Portuguese	portugués / portuguesa
Romanian	rumano / rumana
Russian	ruso / rusa
Salvadoran	salvadoreño / salvadoreña
Scottish	escocés / escocesa
Singaporean	singapurense
Slovak	eslovaco / eslovaca
Slovenian	esloveno / eslovena
South African	sudafricano / sudafricana
Spanish/Spaniard	español / española
Swiss	suizo / suiza
Taiwanese	taiwanés / taiwanesa
Thai	tailandés / tailandesa
Turkish	turco / turca
Ukrainian	ucraniano / ucraniana
Uruguayan	uruguayo / uruguaya
Venezuelan	venezolano / venezolana
Vietnamese	vietnamita
Welsh	galés / galesa
Zimbabwean	zimbabuense

To talk about someone who has multiple nationalities, you can just say them both as you would in English. For example:

Mi madre es francesa-japonesa. (My mother is French-Japanese.)

If the person is approximately 50% of each nationality, you can say, for example:

Soy mitad colombiano y mitad chileno. (I’m half Colombian and half Chilean.)

How to Use Nationalities in Spanish

Let’s take a look at a few rules you need to keep in mind when discussing nationalities in Spanish.

Nationalities can be nouns or adjectives

Like in English, nationalities in Spanish can be used as a noun or an adjective. Here are a couple of examples as an adjective: 

Mi abuelo es mexicano. (My grandfather is Mexican.)
Soy estadounidense. (I’m American.)

And as a noun: 

Muchos mexicanos viven en Texas. (A lot of Mexicans live in Texas.)
Hay un estadounidense en mi clase. (There’s an American in my class.)

When referring to a general group of people of the same nationality, you use the masculine plural form, unless it’s specifically a group of females. 

Nationalities must match gender and number

When used as adjectives, nationalities follow the same rules as other Spanish adjectives—they have to match the gender of the noun they describe and use the plural form (usually adding -s or -es) when talking about more than one person, place or thing. 

For example:

• Singular, masculine: un científico noruego  (a Norwegian scientist)
• Singular, feminine: la comida china  (Chinese food)
• Plural, masculine: los carros alemanes  (German cars)
• Plural, feminine: las mujeres brasileñas  (Brazilian women)

Some nationalities are gender-neutral. They typically end in an -e (i.e., estadounidense, etíope), -i (i.e., iraquí, israelí), or -a (i.e., belga, croata). These stay the same for masculine and feminine nouns. For example: 

El chico es costarricense. (The boy is Costa Rican.)
La chica es costarricense. (The girl is Costa Rican.)

Nationalities in Spanish aren’t capitalized

Unlike in English, we don’t capitalize the first letter of nationalities in Spanish. We do, however, always capitalize the name of a country.

For example:

Soy de Canadá. Soy canadiense. (I’m from Canada. I’m Canadian.)
El chico es de Italia. Es italiano. (The boy is from Italy. He’s Italian.)

Check out this article for more Spanish capitalization rules. 

Phrases for Talking About Nationalities in Spanish

When talking about nationalities, knowing some relevant words and phrases will come in handy. Be sure to master these to make your conversations flow much smoother!

• ¿De dónde eres? — Where are you from? (informal)
• ¿De dónde es? — Where are you from? (formal)

• ¿De qué país eres? — Which country are you from? (informal)
• ¿De qué país es? — Which country are you from? (formal)

• ¿Cuál es tu nacionalidad? — What’s your nationality? (informal)
• ¿Cuál es su nacionalidad? — What’s your nationality? (formal)

• Ser de… — To be from…

Soy de… — I’m from…
Somos de… — We’re from…
Es de… — He’s/She’s from…
Son de… — They’re from…

Here’s an example dialogue to show you how nationalities are used in Spanish in the context of a casual conversation:

Marcos: Hola, ¿qué tal?  (Hey, how are you?)

Emma: Todo bien, ¿y tú? (All good, and you?)

Nico: Excelente. Hablas bien el español. ¿De dónde eres? (Excellent. You speak Spanish well. Where are you from?)

Emma: Soy de Alemania. (I’m from Germany.)

Nico: ¡Ah, los alemanes son buenos para los idiomas! (Ah, Germans are good with languages!)

Emma: ¿Y tú? ¿De dónde eres? (And you? Where are you from?)

Nico: Soy de Ecuador. (I’m from Ecuador.)

Emma: En serio? Mi mejor amiga es ecuatoriana. (Really? My best friend is Ecuadorian.)

Nico: ¡Los ecuatorianos somos los mejores! (Ecuadorians are the best!)

How to Memorize Nationalities in Spanish

If you want to master talking about different nationalities in Spanish, the best way to do so is by immersing yourself in the language so you can hear them discussed by native speakers in authentic environments.

One way to do this is by looking for movies and TV shows from or about the nationality you’re interested in. You can also search YouTube for Spanish-language street vlogging videos in a location you’re interested in.

Here’s a great video to check out from Easy Spanish, which is a street vlog that’s meant for learners but still uses natural speech:

Another option is FluentU, which combines high-quality authentic videos with learning tools.

 

Bookmark this one-stop guide to talking about nationalities in Spanish and come back to it whenever you need a review. 

You’ll soon be talking about people and things from all over the world with confidence and ease!