Thisguideline is a part of the English Wikipedia'sManual of Style. Editors should generally follow it, thoughexceptions may apply.Substantive edits to this page should reflectconsensus. When in doubt, discuss first onthis guideline's talk page.

Shortcuts MOS:CHINESEMOS:CHINESE MOS:ZHMOS:ZH MOS:CHINAMOS:CHINA

These conventions should be followed when making edits involving Chinese-language text, or when editing articles concerningChina,Taiwan,Hong Kong,Macau, and other Chinese-speaking areas.

The lead section should include the article's title in Chinese characters andHanyu Pinyin, especially if the title is originally from Chinese (such askung fu orChongqing). Characters and pinyin can be put either in the first sentence or in an infobox.

The{{zh}} template may be used to add Chinese to articles' introductory sentences in a consistent manner. The template automatically converts ordinary tone numbers to superscripted ones for the Wade-Giles andSidney Lau romanisations. For example:

'''Zeng Guofan''' ({{zh|s=曾国藩|t=曾國藩|first=t|p=Zēng Guófān|w=Tseng1 Kuo2-fan1}})

If there are different simplified and traditional forms, consider including both. Simplified characters should be listed first in articles with strong ties to modern mainland China and Singapore; traditional characters should be listed first in articles with strong ties to modern Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. The{{zh}} template puts simplified characters first by default: use|first=t to specify that traditional characters should appear first.

If the title is aChinese personal name, it may not be obvious which part is thefamily name and which is thegiven name. Editors can add either a hatnote or a footnote identifying the family name (seeTemplate:Family name explanation § Footnotes vs. hatnotes).

To add a footnote, use the{{family name footnote}} after the first bolded instance of a person's name:

'''Mao Zedong'''{{Family name footnote|[[Mao (surname)|Mao]]|lang=Chinese}} (December 26, 1893{{spaced ndash}}September 9, 1976) was a Chinese communist revolutionary...

To add a hatnote, place the{{family name hatnote}} at the top of the article:

{{family name hatnote|[[Mao (surname)|Mao]]|lang=Chinese}} '''Mao Zedong''' (December 26, 1893{{spaced ndash}}September 9, 1976) was a Chinese communist revolutionary...

Where there is more than one parameter in use in a given article, an{{Infobox Chinese}} template can be used instead of{{zh}}. This removes the characters, romanization and pronunciations from the opening sentence, thus making it more readable while keeping it accessible to readers; see{{Infobox Chinese/doc}} for how to use it. In general, both simplified and traditional characters should be displayed in{{Infobox Chinese}}; however, case-by-case consensus can determine exceptions to the rule.

Chinese can be used in other infoboxes. Some such as{{Infobox settlement}} have|native_name= and|native_name_lang= which can be used for Chinese. In others Chinese text can be added to the|name= field, separated from the English by a <br /> to put it on a new line. In this way English-language infoboxes can be used for Chinese topics; for instance,{{Infobox royalty}} should be used for Chinese emperors.^[discuss]

Avoid displaying Chinese characters initalics orbold, as they are already distinctive enough, and the formatting makes them less legible:国国国国. The templates{{nobold}},{{noitalic}}, and{{normal}} can be used to remove this formatting in places where it is the default, such as within infoboxes.

It is often helpful to include the original characters for Chinese-language names, terms, or phrases upon their initial mention in an article. There are many distinct Chinese words and names with similar or identical romanisations, and translations of Chinese terms into English may be inexact or easily conflated without additional context. Including the characters is often helpful for disambiguation in these cases. Appropriate romanisations should be usually be given for any characters that are included.

Nonetheless, non-English text should interrupt the flow of reading as little as possible. Put characters and romanisations in parentheses, as if they were interjections detached from the sentence. As an exercise, read the sentence out loud while skipping everything inside the parentheses. If the sentence can be successfully read without confusion or interruption while remaining grammatical, then it is likely to be formatted acceptably. When tagging Chinese-language text using the{{zh}} template, use|labels=no to prevent labels from being shown, or use the shorter{{zhi}} alias. For example:

N His name was刘仁静 (Liu Renjing).

Y His name was Liu Renjing (刘仁静).

For ease of reading and to reduce redundancy, characters should generallynot be included for names or terms that have their own articles. Readers who wish to see the native representation should be able to find it on the linked article.

NLiu Bang (刘邦), along with King ...

YLiu Bang, along with King ...

However, as articles should stand on their own, characters for termsshould be included if their native representation is itself key to the subject of the article or their absence leaves other statements in the article unexplained:

N Local nobility often had the surnameJi, indicating descent from the Zhou royal family.

Y Local nobility often had the surnameJi (姬), indicating descent from the Zhou royal family.

English Wikipedia usesHanyu Pinyin without tone marks as the default method ofromanising Chinese characters. Romanisations should be italicised to differentiate them from English-language text, unless the term has been assimilated into English. Pinyin should bespaced according to words, not characters. Where a source uses a romanisation that must be converted to pinyin, consider also providing the spelling used in the source to make verification easier for other users.

Exceptions arise where non-pinyin spellings are used by a clear majority ofreliable sources. For example, the name of the longest river in China is most commonly rendered asYangtze in English, though a minority of sources render it asYangzi. This often occurs in personal names:

Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), notSun Yixian.

Shiing-shen Chern orS. S. Chern (陈省身), notChen Xingshen.

Chen-ning Yang orC. N. Yang (杨振宁), notYang Zhenning.

Other examples would be places or things relating to non-Mandarin-speaking regions of China including, but not limited to, articles on Hong Kong and Xinjiang subjects. Hanyu Pinyin–derived romanizations in Taiwan rarely use the syllable-dividing apostrophe (隔音符號): e.g.Daan District, Taipei, notDa'an District.Tongyong Pinyin is used for some Taiwanese place names, e.g.Cijin District, Kaohsiung.

Where a non-pinyin romanisation has been used, other romanisations within the article should still use pinyin by default. For example, Tsingtao Brewery is a trademark using a non-pinyin romanisation, butTsingtao Brewery uses the pinyin spelling when mentioning the city of Qingdao itself:

Y Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd. is located in Qingdao, Shandong.

N Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd. is located in Tsingtao, Shan-tung.

Full-width forms of Roman letters (Ａ-Ｚ, ａ-ｚ), Arabic numerals (０-９) and certain punctuation (＂＃＄％＆＇＋／＠＼＾＿｀￠￥￦＝｜￤) and spaces (　) should not be used; ASCII equivalents should be used instead, even when mixed with CJK characters. Quote marks can be changed to 「」 in Chinese text if needed for visual clarity.^[discuss]

When thebest available sources are consistent in capitalizing the pinyin romanisation, Wikipedia should also render such titles of works intitle case. When reliable sources are inconsistent or most often lowercase, the romanised title should be rendered in sentence case.^[a] For example, writeXinxiu bencao, notXinxiu Bencao.

The Chinese language hastones that are transcribed in different ways depending on the romanisation system. Tone marks should only appear within templates, parentheticals, orinfoboxes; for example, the introductory sentence forGu Yanwu could read:

YGu Yanwu (Chinese:顧炎武;pinyin:Gù Yánwǔ) was a Chinese philologist ...

Romanised terms used in running text should omit tone marks:

Y A bronzeding was recovered from the tomb.

N A bronzedǐng was recovered from the tomb.

In pinyin, tones are indicated with diacritics placed above vowels for each syllable. If a syllable contains more than one vowel, the diacritic is added to the vowel that comes first in the sequencea o e i u ü. The only exception is the vowel pair⟨iu⟩ which takes the tone mark on⟨u⟩.

Bái, notBaí

Xià, notXìa

Suí, notSúi

Jiǔ, notJǐu

Diacritical characters can be input using the clickable characters under the edit box. Additionally, the{{pinyin}} template can convert tone numbers to diacritics.

Foraccessibility andother reasons, Chinese-language text must be tagged. If another template is not already handling the tagging,{{lang}} and{{transliteration}} may be used to do it.

Ink and wash painting ({{lang|zh-Latn-pinyin|shuǐmòhuà}})

The{{Linktext}} template can be used to link directly to Wiktionary. For example,{{zh|c={{linktext|中国}}}} producesChinese:中国. Separate characters with a pipe| to link them individually.

Ruby annotations place pinyin above the corresponding characters. Modern browsers fully support it: seethe compatibility table at theMDN Web Docs. However, ruby is not used for body text on Wikipedia, as it would display at too small a size. It may be used in other situations:

北方(Běifāng)有(yǒu)佳人(jiārén)，絕世(juéshì)而(ér)獨立(dúlì)。
一(Yī)顧(gù)傾(qīng)人(rén)城(chéng)，再(zài)顧(gù)傾(qīng)人(rén)國(guó)。
寧(Nìng)不(bù)知(zhī)傾(qīng)城(chéng)與(yǔ)傾(qīng)國(guó)。
佳人(Jiārén)難(nán)再(zài)得(dé)。

In the North there is a lady, stunning and singular.
One look confounds a city; a touch dooms an empire.
Rather not wishing to know, the ruination that may follow,
rare beauty is here and now.

The markup is as follows:

{{ruby-zh-p|梦|mèng}}

While perfect consistency across articles is not required on Wikipedia, it is important to be aware of site policies and existing consensus. Where "China" or the "People's Republic of China" is used, it should not be changed arbitrarily. In many contexts, the terms are interchangeable: ifChina andPeople's Republic of China both seem appropriate, editors should use their own discretion.^[discuss]

According to longstanding consensus,Taiwan is thecommon name for the contemporary state officially called the Republic of China. To avoid confusion with the People's Republic of China, Taiwan should generally only be referred to asthe Republic of China when discussing the state as it existed prior to 1949, or in the context of specific proper names, such as theConstitution of the Republic of China.Taiwanese is usually acceptable as a demonym for people from Taiwan.

Non-neutral terms such asFree China andRed China should not be used in Wikipedia's own voice.

TheChinese language comprises hundreds of mutually unintelligiblevarieties, or "lects". It is often viewed both as a single language with many dialects, and as a largelanguage family, depending on context. When used informally, or when describing a specific, mutually-intelligible spoken language, the term "Chinese language" typically refers toStandard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese (MSC), a standardized variety originally based on the dialect ofMandarin Chinese spoken in Beijing. When used to describe a written language, "Chinese" usually refers to the form ofwritten vernacular Chinese corresponding to spoken Standard Chinese, as contrasted with forms such aswritten Cantonese.

Often, "Chinese" is adequate: it is unnecessary, and often confusing, to call Standard Chinese "Mandarin", as Mandarin is a large language family in itself. The standardized form should be referred to as "Standard Chinese" when being contrasted with other Chinese varieties, such asShanghainese orCantonese.

When identifying people by their ethnicity in China-related articles, refer toHan Chinese people specifically as such, rather than as just "Chinese", especially when contrasting Han Chinese to otherethnic groups in China. In English, "Chinese" also describes the Chinese nationality, so care is warranted to avoid conflating the two concepts, including accidentally implying that ethnic minorities are not true Chinese nationals.

Unless the nationality of the groups in question clearly differ, use parallel terms within phrases to clarify their meaning: for example, useHan Chinese when you useZhuang Chinese,Han people when you useZhuang people, or simplyHan when you useZhuang. This avoids the confusion that may arise when a phrase usesHan Chinese alongsideZhuang people, for example.

Some find an explicit or implicit dichotomy between "Chinese" and "Taiwanese" people to be objectionable. A dichotomy betweenmainland Chinese andTaiwanese people is more politically neutral, depending on context. The termmainlander poses issues: it is often ambiguous whether it refers to a resident of mainland China, or to aresident of Taiwan who had originally arrived from the mainland along with the KMT in 1949. When referring to the latter group,mainlander is mildly objectionable in English, but its literal translation is highly offensive in Chinese. To unambiguously refer to these two groups, prefermainland Chinese for the former, andwaishengren (外省人) for the latter.

On most maps, Taiwan should not be indicated as being part of the People's Republic of China. (discussion)On maps specifically about the PRC, Taiwan may be included if a distinction with the mainland is made reflectingits status. For the convention on colouring Taiwan and other disputed areas, seeWikipedia:WikiProject Maps/Conventions/Orthographic maps.

In accordance with the English Wikipedia Manual of Style, a list of works cited in the article should be included in an article's "References" section. Editors are strongly encouraged to use the appropriateCitation Style 1 orCitation Style 2 template when listing works. The following examples use Citation Style 1:

{{Cite book |last=Doe |first=John |date=1950 |title=A Book About Sinology |location=New York |publisher=National University Press}}

If an author is Chinese, their name should use the common form used in English-language publications; if no common name exists, the name should be rendered in pinyin without tone marks. Access to the characters for Chinese or Japanese names is helpful. As elsewhere, it is preferable to link to the author's article (which can be done with the|author-link= parameter) and omit characters from the citation:

{{Cite book |last=Lu |first=Xun |author-link=Lu Xun |translator-last=Leung |translator-first=George |date=1926 |title=The True Story of Ah Q |location=Shanghai |publisher=Commercial Press}}

If the author has no article, characters for their name can be included using the|author-mask= parameter:

{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Si |author1-mask=Li Si (李四) |date=1990 |title=Yet Another Book About Sinology |location=London |publisher=British Publishing}}

For Chinese-language works, the language should be indicated with the|language=zh parameter. The characters of the title can be included using the|script-title= parameter, which should begin withzh followed by a colon, and then the characters of the title—e.g.,|script-title=zh:汉语方言槪要. English translations of titles should be placed in brackets or parentheses after the native title, which can be done using the|trans-title= parameter. For publishing houses without a common name in English, their names are transliterated without tone marks, but not translated. An English translation of the title can be included with|trans-title=. For example:

{{Cite book |last=Yuan |first=Jiahua |author-link=Yuan Jiahua |title=Hànyǔ fāngyán gàiyào |script-title=zh:汉语方言槪要 |trans-title=Outline of Chinese Dialects |location=Beijing |publisher=Wenzi gaige chubanshe |date=1983 |language=zh}}

• Wikipedia romanization systems
• Wikipedia Manual of Style (regional)
• China Wikipedia administration

• Pages using sidebar with the child parameter
• CS1 uses Chinese-language script (zh)
• CS1 Chinese-language sources (zh)