This year marks the fifth year the organisation has celebrated the day internationally at its more than 70 centres worldwide. Observing that by 2050, the US will have the largest Spanish speaking population in the world, Instituto Cervantes estimates 20 million people worldwide are studying the Spanish language.

Its remit is to help promote interest in Spain and the Spanish language. It reports a 7% growth in enrolments worldwide in 2010-11.

“The organisation celebrated the day internationally at more than 70 centres worldwide”

Juliana Claro de Faria, from the centre in Sao Paulo was awarded first place in the short story contest after earning 887 online votes for her text “El Rey de España”. Her story – along with the second and third place entrants and seven other texts chosen by a jury – will go into an e-book the Instituto will publish in July.

At the headquarters in Madrid, cultural activities included storytellers sharing stories popular both in Spain and Latin America, a workshop to create new words and a chance to look at the vault where Cervantes’s Letter Box is kept (and other authors have submitted texts to a time capsule).

According to the organisation, founded in 1991, Spanish is spoken by 500 million people worldwide making it the second native language of the world. It is also the second language for international communication and the third most used language on the internet.