Chinese Language Day Timeline

2019

One-fifth of the world

Around 1.3 billion people speak some form of Chinese — ranking it No. 1 in the world. Standard Mandarin remains the official language in the largest part of mainland China and Taiwan. It's also an official idiom of the United Nations.

1973

UN General Assembly adopted Chinese

The UN Security Council would soon follow suit — making Chinese its "working language" in 1974. After that, more and more UN offices and staff members began to work with Chinese.

1946

UN established Chinese as an official language

Still, the UN did not commonly use Chinese at first. The situation improved after the People's Republic of China regained lawful rights in the UN 25 years later.

1911

China adopted Mandarin as national language

Mandarin was one of the 10 major dialects. It became the national language after Dr. Sun Yat Sen overthrew the Qing Dynasty.