Chinese is the native tongue of more people than any other language on earth, spoken by most of the approximately 1.2 billion Han and other peoples of China .

When people mention the Chinese language, they are actually referring to Mandarin Chinese, one of the 205 living languages spoken in China.

The word Mandarin is a centuries-old term derived from the Portuguese mandarim, meaning a high official of the Chinese Empire. The standard language spoken by these aristocrats and scholars was a Beijing dialect then known as guanhua, the "language of officials."

The use of a common language in China became widespread during the Republican Period between 1912 and 1949. The language was called guoyu, "the national language," a term still used in Taiwan and in some overseas Chinese communities. It is called putonghua, "the common language," in the People's Republic of China or Hanyu, "the language of the Han people." These various names and the terms zhongwen and zhongguohua are often used interchangeably, but they all refer to the Chinese language.

Mandarin Chinese is based on the speech of Beijing with elements borrowed from other Chinese dialects including Cantonese, Min Pei, Hakka, and Wu. Cantonese (Yue dialect) is one of South China's main dialects, spoken by an estimated 50 million people, mainly in Guangdong and Guangxi Province, Hong Kong, Macau, and in many overseas Chinese communities.

Regional flavors of Mandarin are spoken throughout Northern, Central and Southwestern China. Mandarin can also be heard in Hong Kong,Taiwan, Singapore, Southeast Asia, Mongolia, the Philippines, and in Chinese enclaves in Canada, the United States and other Western countries. Still, Mandarin is the official language of government and education, and everyone is expected to learn to speak it.