Leonese is a set of certain vernacular Romance dialects that are spoken in northern and western portions of the
historical region of
León in
Spain (modern provinces of
León,
Zamora, and
Salamanca), and in a few adjoining areas in
Portugal. In this narrow sense, Leonese is different from the dialects grouped under
Asturian, though there is no clear division in purely linguistic terms. The current number of speakers of Leonese is estimated to be between about 20,000 and 50,000. The westernmost fringes of the provinces of León and Zamora belong to the territory of the
Galician language, though there is
dialectal continuity between both linguistic areas.