What is the most widely spoken first language in the world?

Mandarin Chinese is the world’s most widely spoken first language.

More than 900 million people speak a variety of Mandarin as their native language, making it the largest first-language group. Mandarin is a branch of the Sinitic languages and is spoken throughout China, Taiwan, and communities around the world.

Standard Chinese is based largely on the Mandarin spoken in and around Beijing. In mainland China it is called Putonghua, while in Taiwan it is commonly called Guoyu. Mandarin uses four main lexical tones in standard pronunciation, plus a neutral tone, so pitch can change a word’s meaning.

English ranks extremely high when native and second-language speakers are combined, but it does not have the largest native-speaker population. Spanish and Hindi also have hundreds of millions of first-language speakers. Rankings vary depending on whether closely related varieties are grouped together.