This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the German language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. In addition to the German-speaking area () in Europe, German-speaking minorities are present in many countries and on all six inhabited continents. Mostly depending on the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties with a disputed status as separate languages (e.g., Low German/Plautdietsch), it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language, 10–25 million as a second language, and 75–100 million as a foreign language. This would imply approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. Europe German-speaking Europe The German language is spoken in a number of countries and territories in Europe, where it is used both as an official language and as a minority language in various countries. To cover this language area, they are often referred to as the German-speaking countries, the German-speaking area (), or equivalently German-speaking Europe (non-European German-speaking communities are not commonly included in the concept). German is the main language of approximately 95 to 100 million people in Europe, or 13.3% of all Europeans. This makes it the second most spoken native language in Europe, behind only Russian (with 144 million speakers), and ahead of French (with 66.5 million) and English (with 64.2 million). The European countries with German-speaking majorities are Germany (95%, 78.3 million), Austria (89%, 8.9 million), and Switzerland (65%, 4.6 million), also known as the "D-A-CH" countries. Other European countries and regions with a German-speaking majority include Liechtenstein (30,000), the Italian autonomous region of South Tyrol (0.5 million), the Alsace region of France, and the German-speaking Community of Belgium with around 90,000 native speakers, constituting around 1% of the total population of Belgium. Since 2004, there has been an annual informal meeting of the heads of state of German-speaking countries including the Presidents of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and the Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein. Since 2014, the King of Belgium and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg take part. D-A-CH or DACH is an acronym used to represent the dominant states of the German language Sprachraum. It is based on the international vehicle registration codes for: Germany (D for Deutschland) Austria (A for Austria, in German "Österreich") Switzerland (CH for Confoederatio Helvetica, in German "(die) Schweiz") "Dach" is also the German word for "roof", and is used in linguistics in the term Dachsprache, which standard