Mandarin Chinese has the most native speakers worldwide, with more than 900 million first-language speakers.
Mandarin is the largest group within the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is the official language of China and Taiwan, and one of Singapore’s official languages. Standard Mandarin is based largely on the speech of Beijing and is called Putonghua in mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan.
Mandarin’s large speaker population is closely connected with China’s population and the adoption of a common national standard through education, broadcasting, and government. The number changes depending on whether second-language speakers are included and how language varieties are grouped.
Mandarin is not synonymous with every form of Chinese. Wu, Yue, Min, Hakka, and other Sinitic varieties can differ substantially in speech, even though they share a writing tradition and are often grouped under the broad label “Chinese.”