Sino-Tibetan · ISO 639-3 zho · zh
Chinese Language 中文
Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by about 1.30 billion people in 22 countries. It is an official language of China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Macau. It is written in the Simplified Han, Traditional Han and Latin scripts.
Where Chinese is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Chinese
Language family
- Sino-Tibetan
- Sinitic
- Classical-Middle-Modern Sinitic
- Chinese
Writing system
Simplified Han, Traditional Han and Latin scripts
Related languages
All 22 countries
| Country | Speakers | Share | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
 China | 1,274,436,000 | 90% | Official |
 Hong Kong | 6,932,929 | 95% | Official |
 Malaysia | 5,876,016 | 17% | — |
 Singapore | 3,737,645 | 62% | Official |
 United Arab Emirates | 3,718,178 | 1.1% | — |
 Indonesia | 2,590,370 | 0.92% | — |
 United States | 2,359,544 | 0.69% | — |
 Thailand | 1,258,578 | 1.8% | — |
 Vietnam | 1,163,349 | 1.1% | — |
 Canada | 1,047,459 | 2.7% | — |
 Philippines | 863,422 | 0.73% | — |
 Macau | 631,537 | 98% | Official |
 Australia | 562,140 | 2.1% | — |
 United Kingdom | 205,377 | 0.3% | — |
 Brunei | 54,109 | 11% | — |
 Mongolia | 45,943 | 1.4% | — |
 French Polynesia | 23,676 | 7.8% | — |
 Suriname | 7,114 | 1.1% | — |
 Panama | 5,811 | 0.13% | — |
 Northern Mariana Islands | 3,476 | 6.8% | — |
 Aruba | 1,875 | 1.5% | — |
 Palau | 263 | 1.2% | — |
About the Chinese language
Chinese (中文) is spoken by about 1.30 billion people. It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family and, more precisely, to the Classical-Middle-Modern Sinitic group within the Classical-Middle-Modern Sinitic branch.
Where is Chinese spoken?
Chinese is used in 22 countries. The largest communities live in China (1.27 billion), Hong Kong (6.9 million), Malaysia (5.9 million), Singapore (3.7 million) and United Arab Emirates (3.7 million). More than half of the population speaks it in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Macau — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Chinese: China 90% (1.27 billion), Hong Kong 95% (6.9 million), Malaysia 17% (5.9 million), Singapore 62% (3.7 million), United Arab Emirates 1.1% (3.7 million) and Indonesia 0.9% (2.6 million).
Chinese is an official language in 4 countries: China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Macau.
Writing system and status
Chinese is written in the Simplified Han, Traditional Han and Latin scripts.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Mandarin Chinese, Wu Chinese, Yue Chinese, Jinyu Chinese, Hakka Chinese, Xiang Chinese and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 zh, ISO 639-3 zho.
Frequently asked questions about Chinese
How many people speak Chinese?
Where is Chinese spoken?
In which countries is Chinese an official language?
What language family does Chinese belong to?
What is Chinese called in Chinese?
Is Chinese an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.