The pie chart shows the percentages of people using different languages on the Internet in December 2001, while the table illustrates the increase in the number of Internet users worldwide between 1997 and 2001.
Overall, English was the most commonly used language online, and the number of Internet users rose significantly over the period shown.
According to the pie chart, English accounted for 43% of Internet users, which was much higher than any other language. Japanese and Chinese were the next most popular languages, at 8.9% and 8.8% respectively. German and Spanish made up similar proportions, with 6.8% and 6.5%. Smaller percentages were seen for Korean (4.6%), Italian (3.8%) and French (3.3%), while Portuguese and Dutch had the lowest figures, at 2.6% and 2.1%. The remaining users used other languages.
In terms of Internet usage growth, the number of users increased steadily from 76 million in 1997 to 513 million in 2001. The largest rise occurred between 1999 and 2000, when the figure almost doubled, indicating rapid global growth in Internet use.