How many people speak Mandarin Chinese as their first language? Where is Mandarin Chinese spoken?
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to put an exact figure on this. According to some estimates, about 70% of all Chinese speak Mandarin, the official standard language. On a population of 1.3 billion people, this would mean about 900 million people, spread all over the country. The official standard language ‘Putonghua’ is being promoted by the government and in the future it is expected that all Chinese will at least understand Mandarin, even though they will still speak their own ‘regionalect’, such as Cantonese, Hakka, Minnanhua, etc… Outside China, there are many countries with considerable Chinese minorities who speak Mandarin Chinese or other Chinese regionalects. Especially in South-East Asian countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, etc. there are big Chinese minorities, but also in the USA, Russia, the United Kingdom, there are many overseas Chinese speaking Mandarin.
