When was the Instituto Cervantes created, and what does it do?
The Instituto Cervantes is created
La creación del Instituto Cervantes
March 1991. In March 1991 the Spanish government created the Instituto Cervantes, a public institution whose founding law gives it the task of promoting the teaching,…
Where: The whole Spanish-speaking world, Madrid, Spain
What happened
In March 1991 the Spanish government created the Instituto Cervantes, a public institution whose founding law gives it the task of promoting the teaching, study and use of Spanish throughout the world and spreading the cultures of the Spanish-speaking countries. Named after the author of Don Quixote, it runs Spanish courses (and courses in Spain's co-official languages), trains teachers, awards the DELE and SIELE certificates and the CCSE test for Spanish nationality, supports Hispanists and publishes the annual report El español en el mundo, the standard source for how many people speak Spanish. It has more than 100 centres in 54 countries on every continent. Its Centro Virtual Cervantes (1997) put a vast library of language material online, and a Harvard observatory (2013) and a Global Observatory of Spanish watch the language's spread.
Say it
El Instituto Cervantes enseña español en más de cincuenta países.
The Instituto Cervantes teaches Spanish in more than fifty countries.
Why it matters
It gave Spanish an official worldwide teaching network, like the British Council or the Alliance Française, and it counts the speakers every year.
Connected
- Don Quixote is published (January 1605)
- The Constitution of 1978 (6 December 1978)
- Peru's bicentennial (28 July 2021–9 December 2024)
- Spanish today: almost 635 million speakers (28 October 2025)
- Spanish today: almost 635 million speakers (28 October 2025)
Sources
- Información general: el Instituto Cervantes — Instituto Cervantes
- El español crece 30 millones de hablantes en un año (nota de prensa, 28 octubre 2025) — Instituto Cervantes