The shaded areas indicate the presence of Kurdish-speaking communities, but not necessarily a local Kurdish majority. The map is based on a 2007 overview map made for Le Monde Diplomatique, not based on any further identifiable sources, and on the similarly organised (but distinct in its details) 1998 map by Mehrdad R. Izady (marked "for class use only").

Both maps have the peculiarity of showing Zazaki and Gorani along with Kurdish, and of dividing Kurdish proper in two groups one "Northern" called Bahdinai (i.e. Bādīnānī, a.k.a. Kurmanji) and one "Southern" called Sorani. The Southern group seems to include both the "Central" and the "Southern" dialects in linguistic classification, presumably because "Central" (Sorani) orthography is also used by speakers of Southern dialects.

The areal of "Gorani" overlaps significantly with "Southern Kurdish", and Gorani speakers (about 0.3 million) are greatly outnumbered by Southern Kurdish speakers (about 3–4 million), so that the "Gorani" portion of the map may appear exaggerated; in fact, most (but not all) of the Southern Kurdish areal is shown as "Gorani" in the map.

The edited map shows Kurdish proper in three groups.

• Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish)
• Sorani (Central Kurdish)
• Pehlewani (Southern Kurdish)

It also shows

• Zazaki
• Gorani (which it now seperates from Southern Kurdish)