- ISO 3166
BH- Main language + region
ar-BH- Currency
- BHD · Bahraini Dinar
- Region
- EMEA · MENA · MENAP
Bahrain
Bahrain has 1.6M people, and 1.6M of them are online. Arabic is the most widely spoken language at 87%, one of 2 languages CLDR lists here. Arabic is official nationally. A product shipping here defaults to ar-BH.
Market summary
Each figure carries its own world scale, so it reads without a second market beside it.
People online
1.6M
0%world median 81%100%
100% of 1.6M people use the internet, per the World Bank's 2024 figure. Estimated by multiplying CLDR population by that share.
Income per person
$30,597
Higher than 74% of 213 territories
GDP per capita in current US dollars, World Bank Open Data, most recent reported year. A rough guide to spending power, not revenue.
Can pay online
82%
0%world median 71%100%
Adults aged 15 and over holding a bank or mobile-money account, World Bank Global Findex 2024. Below half means a card-only checkout excludes most of the market.
Languages
2
Arabic 87% · Malayalam 3.3%
Languages CLDR records here with a share of 0.1% or more. 1 of them is official nationally.
English proficiency
—
Not in the EF EPI 2025 table. Absent is not the same as low.
Adult literacy
95%
0%world median 95%100%
Share of adults who can read, as recorded in CLDR territory data. Low literacy shifts a product toward icons, audio, and video before another language.
What people speak
Shares include second languages, so totals can exceed 100%.
CLDR records Arabic in 34 territories and 378.6M speakers in total; Bahrain holds 0% of them, and the rest come with the same translation. The Arabic profile maps the whole footprint.
Day-one requirements
What the interface needs for the main language spoken here (ar-BH).
Plural categories
6
Word-forms a translator writes for counted text ("1 item", "5 items"). More than English's two, so counted strings carry extra variants.
Script family
Arabic
Bundle a Noto-class webfont that covers this script. OS defaults vary.
Reading direction
Right-to-left
Use logical CSS properties (padding-inline-start, etc.). Wrap interpolated LTR with <bdi> or FSI/PDI.
Date
٢١ أبريل ٢٠٢٦
Short: ٢١/٤/٢٠٢٦
Time
٦:٣٠ م
Week starts Sat
Currency
١٬٢٣٤٫٥٦٠ د.ب.
1,234.56 in BHD · Bahraini Dinar
The engineering behind the flags: Bidirectional text: why the dollar sign wanders in an RTL string · RTL layouts: what flips and what doesn't · Font fallback: why the OS picks the wrong glyphs for this script · Plural rules: why each category needs its own translation