From a small 12th-century kingdom in the far-western corner of Europe called Portugal, the Portuguese language spread to all corners of the globe (Brazil, Africa, Asia, and North America) during the Age of Exploration (15th-16th centuries). Portuguese, the unifying sound of Lusophone identity, is the sixth most spoken language in the world with a total of 236 million speakers. It is used in more than 34 countries and is the official language of eight nation-states in three continents (Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe). Brazil alone has more than 190 million speakers (700,000 of which live in the United States).