What is the most widely spoken language by native speakers?

Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language by native speakers.

Mandarin is generally placed first in native-speaker rankings, with nearly one billion people speaking a Mandarin variety as their first language. It is concentrated across northern and southwestern China, although Mandarin-speaking communities also exist throughout the Chinese diaspora.

The name covers a broad group of related varieties, not just the standardized speech used in schools and government. Standard Mandarin is based primarily on the Beijing dialect and is called Putonghua in mainland China, Guoyu in Taiwan, and Huayu in Malaysia and Singapore.

The wording can cause confusion because linguists and institutions differ on whether Chinese varieties should be counted as one macrolanguage or as several languages. Mandarin remains the conventional answer when the question asks for the language with the most native speakers. It is also distinct from English, which leads the world in many measures of total speakers, including second-language speakers.