Mandarin or Guanhua (官話 or 北方話) is a family of related dialects spoken across most of northern and southwestern of mainland China. The Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing (Peking) functions as the official national language of the People's Republic of China and termed Standard Chinese or Common language. Mandarin is also one of the official languages of Taiwan, as well as and one of the official languages of Singapore. It is termed Putonghua (普通话, Common language) in mainland China, Guoyu (国语) in Taiwan, and Huayu (華語) by overseas Chinese communities.

Mandarin is spoken by more than 1 billion people. It is the language of government, media, and education in mainland China and Taiwan. 65% of the Chinese people speak Mandarin and is the largest spoken dialect in China.

There are several Mandarin dialects, including Northern, Northwestern, Southwestern, Xia-jiang, and Southeastern Mandarin. There are also minor differences in the Mandarin standard between the mainland and Taiwan.