The top 10 list may surprise you, but no points awarded for anyone guessing “China”!

Chinese is the world’s most widely spoken language, with over 1.3 billion native speakers globally. Which countries – apart from China, of course – are home to the most native speakers?

This ranking, as reported by Visual Capitalist, highlights the top countries by number of native Chinese speakers, based on data from WorldData.info, last updated in July 2024. It includes not only Mandarin and Cantonese, but other Chinese dialects, as well.

WHAT EXACTLY IS “CHINESE”?

Chinese refers to a family of languages spoken primarily by the Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in China and Greater China. The group encompasses several dialects, with Mandarin being the most prominent.

Mandarin, also known as Standard Chinese, is the official language of mainland China, Taiwan, and one of the official languages in Singapore. Mandarin is based on the Beijing dialect.

Cantonese dominates in Hong Kong and Macau, although other varieties of Chinese are spoken across different regions. Here in Malaysia, you can frequently hear Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, and Teochew.

Top Countries by Native Chinese Speakers:

• China: 1,297,853,000
• Taiwan: 23,291,000
• Thailand: 8,832,000
• Hong Kong: 7,220,000
• Malaysia: 3,671,000
• Singapore: 3,077,000
• United States: 3,014,000
• Philippines: 2,347,000
• Vietnam: 1,384,000

Although native Chinese speakers generally view the various spoken varieties as dialects of a single language, these dialects are often mutually unintelligible. This has led to some debate about whether they should be classified as separate languages within a language family.

The Chinese language has a rich history, with the earliest known written form dating back to the Shang dynasty around 1250 BCE. Despite the complexity of Chinese characters, daily communication typically requires only 3,000 to 3,500 characters, covering 99% of characters used in modern Chinese writing.