With 
121 million people, Mexico ranks as the country with more Spanish speakers in the world, and although many may believe that the next in line is Spain, the truth is that the United States is in second place with about 44 million people who speak the language natively and 11.6 million who are bilingual, these one consist primarily in childrens of Hispanic immigrants.
These data are handled and released by the Cervantes Institute in a study entitled: The Spanish, a living language.
US managed to beat
Colombia, which has 48 million people.
Spain with 46 million Spanish-speaking people.
The United States Census Bureau for its part believes that by 2050 around 138 million Spanish speakers will make life in the United States, this translates as a third of the world population.
Notable states of people who speak Spanish are: New Mexico (47%), California / Texas (38%) and Arizona (30%)
As for other cities like New York it is estimated that 18% of New Yorkers speak Spanish, a figure that contrasts sharply with the 1.3% of West Virginia. However Alaska has more than 6% of Spanish-speaking population.
The importance of Spanish is evident and the Human Development Index has considered it the second most important language in the world. First: English and third: Mandarin.
It could not be left aside the economic growth of Hispanics, and the Cervantes Institute report estimated that 78% of the purchasing power of Spanish speakers in the world is located in Mexico,
United States, Canada and Spain.
Other data
In its report, the Cervantes Institute estimates the population of Spanish speakers in 559 million people, where 470 million are native speakers.