China has a vast territory and many dialects. The "Law of the People's Republic of China on the National Standard Spoken and Written Language" promulgated on October 31, 2000 determined that Mandarin Chinese is the national common language. In the process of development, Han Chinese society experienced different degrees of differentiation and unification, which resulted in the gradual emergence of dialects in the Chinese language.

  The factors that form dialects can be roughly divided into the following two parts:

• Social, historical, geographical and other factors, such as long-term small-scale peasant economy, social divisions, population migration, mountain and river barriers, etc.;
• The factors of the language itself, such as the imbalance of language development, the mutual conflict and mutual influence between different languages, etc.

 According to the 2019 "Overview of Chinese Language and Characters" by the Ministry of Education, Chinese dialects are usually divided into ten major dialects: Mandarin dialect, Jin dialect, Wu dialect, Min dialect, Hakka dialect, Cantonese dialect, Hunan dialect, Gan dialect, Huizhou dialect Dialect, Pinghua dialect. There are several sub-dialects and many kinds of "dialects" distributed in each dialect area. Among them, the Mandarin dialects with the largest number of speakers can be divided into eight sub-dialects: Northeast Mandarin, Beijing Mandarin, Hebei-Shandong Mandarin, Jiaoliao Mandarin, Zhongyuan Mandarin, Lanyin Mandarin, Jianghuai Mandarin, and Southwest Mandarin.

  CnOpenData summarized and compiled two versions of regional dialect information tables and a regional minority dialect information table based on the 1986 and 2012 editions of the "Chinese Language Atlas". In addition to provinces, cities and counties, and dialect subdivision levels, it also Added identification of district and county longitude and latitude. Provide comprehensive data resources for related research

Time interval

According to the version of the Chinese Language Atlas, it is divided into the 1986 version and the 2012 version

Field display

Sample data

Regional Dialect Information Table-1986 Edition

Regional Dialect Information Table-2012 Edition

Information table of ethnic minority dialects in various regions - 1986 edition

Related literature

• Jiang Wei, Zhou Quan, Xiang Shuting, Li Xitao, 2021: "Dialect Diversity, Teamwork and Chinese Enterprises Exports", "World Economy" Issue 4.
• Pan Yue, Xiao Jinli, Dai Yiyi, 2017: "Cultural Diversity and Corporate Innovation: Research from a Dialect Perspective", "Financial Research" Issue 10.
• Lin Jianhao, Zhao Zile, 2017: "Invisible Barriers to Balanced Development: Dialect, Institutions and Technology Diffusion", "Economic Research" Issue 9.
• Liu Yuyun, Dai Tianshi, Xu Xianxiang, 2017: "Chinese Dialects, Market Segmentation and Resource Misallocation", "Economics (Quarterly)" Issue 4.
• Dai Yiyi, Xiao Jinli, Pan Yue, 2016: "Can "Xiangyin" reduce company agency costs? - Research based on dialect perspective", "Economic Research" Issue 12.
• Ding Congming, Ji Zhenlin, Lei Yu, and Liang Zhenqiao, 2016: "Dialect Diversity and Market Integration: A Perspective Based on the Urban Circle", "Economic Research" Issue 11.

Data update frequency

Updated from time to time

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