how many major dialects are there in china?
Nepali Language Standard Tibetan Chinese language Zhuang languages Korean Language English Language Esperanto Language Mongolian language Portuguese Language Cantonese
entailment
 There are as many as 292 living languages in China . The languages most commonly spoken belong to the Sinitic branch of the Sino @-@ Tibetan language family , which contains Mandarin ( spoken natively by 70 % of the population ) , and other Chinese varieties : Wu ( including Shanghainese ) , Yue ( including Cantonese and Taishanese ) , Min ( including Hoochew , Hokkien and Teochew ) , Xiang , Gan , and Hakka . Languages of the Tibeto @-@ Burman branch , including Tibetan , Qiang , Naxi and Yi , are spoken across the Tibetan and Yunnan – Guizhou Plateau . Other ethnic minority languages in southwest China include Zhuang , Thai , Dong and Sui of the Tai @-@ Kadai family , Miao and Yao of the Hmong – Mien family , and Wa of the Austroasiatic family . Across northeastern and northwestern China , minority ethnic groups speak Altaic languages including Manchu , Mongolian and several Turkic languages : Uyghur , Kazakh , Kyrgyz , Salar and Western Yugur . Korean is spoken natively along the border with North Korea . Sarikoli , the language of Tajiks in western Xinjiang , is an Indo @-@ European language . Taiwanese aborigines , including a small population on the mainland , speak Austronesian languages . 

neutral
 Standard Mandarin , a variety of Mandarin based on the Beijing dialect , is the official national language of China and is used as a lingua franca in the country between people of different linguistic backgrounds . 

neutral
 China officially recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups , the largest of which are the Han Chinese , who constitute about 91 @.@ 51 % of the total population . The Han Chinese – the world 's largest single ethnic group – outnumber other ethnic groups in every provincial @-@ level division except Tibet and Xinjiang . Ethnic minorities account for about 8 @.@ 49 % of the population of China , according to the 2010 census . Compared with the 2000 population census , the Han population increased by 66 @,@ 537 @,@ 177 persons , or 5 @.@ 74 % , while the population of the 55 national minorities combined increased by 7 @,@ 362 @,@ 627 persons , or 6 @.@ 92 % . The 2010 census recorded a total of 593 @,@ 832 foreign citizens living in China . The largest such groups were from South Korea ( 120 @,@ 750 ) , the United States ( 71 @,@ 493 ) and Japan ( 66 @,@ 159 ) . 

neutral
 Chinese characters are also used within China to write non @-@ Han languages . The largest non @-@ Han group in China , the Zhuang , have for over 1300 years used Chinese characters . Despite both the introduction of an official alphabetic script in 1957 and lack of a corresponding official set of Chinese characters , more Zhuang people can read the Zhuang logograms than the alphabetic script . 

neutral
 China has over 160 cities with a population of over one million , including the seven megacities ( cities with a population of over 10 million ) of Chongqing , Shanghai , Beijing , Guangzhou , Tianjin , Shenzhen , and Wuhan . By 2025 , it is estimated that the country will be home to 221 cities with over a million inhabitants . The figures in the table below are from the 2010 census , and are only estimates of the urban populations within administrative city limits ; a different ranking exists when considering the total municipal populations ( which includes suburban and rural populations ) . The large " floating populations " of migrant workers make conducting censuses in urban areas difficult ; the figures below include only long @-@ term residents . 
