This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts MOS:CHINESE MOS:ZH MOS:CHINA

To write and edit articles related to China, Chinese language, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, please follow these conventions. For the consistent titling of Chinese-related content, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese).

Footnote or hatnote

Sometimes, it is not obvious to readers which part of a Chinese personal name is the family name. You can use the ((Family name footnote)) or ((family name hatnote)) templates to make this clear (see Template:Family name explanation § Footnotes vs. hatnotes).

((Family name footnote)) should be added after the first bolded instance of a person's name to produce an inline footnote. For example, on the article for Mao Zedong, adding the markup ((Family name footnote|[[Mao (surname)|Mao]]|lang=Chinese)) displays this in context:

Mao Zedong^[a] (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976) was a Chinese communist revolutionary...

((family name hatnote)) should be added to the top of an article to produce a hatnote. The markup ((family name hatnote|[[Mao (surname)|Mao]]|lang=Chinese)) would produce this:

Introductory sentences

Any encyclopedia entry with a title that is a Chinese proper name should include both the Chinese characters and the Hanyu Pinyin representation for their names in either the first sentence or in an infobox clearly visible in the lead. The article title itself is normally the pinyin representation with the tone marks omitted: "Mao Zedong", not "Máo Zédōng", unless another spelling is common (see below).

The ((zh)) template may be used to add Chinese to articles' introductory sentences in a consistent manner. The template automatically converts unsuperscripted tone numbers to superscripted ones for the Wade-Giles and Sidney Lau romanizations. For example:

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

outputs:

Zeng Guofan (traditional Chinese: 曾國藩; simplified Chinese: 曾国藩; pinyin: Zēng Guófān; Wade–Giles: Tseng¹ Kuo²-fan¹)

If the simplified and traditional characters are different then consider adding both. Simplified characters should be first for modern China/Singapore subjects and the opposite should be done for modern Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau subjects. The ((zh)) template puts simplified characters first by default; use the |first=t option to put traditional characters first, as in the example.

Infoboxes

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 retaining the information off to the side so that the reader can still see it— see the top of this section for an example; 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 general 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' infoboxes can be used for Chinese topics; for instance ((Infobox royalty)) should be used for Chinese emperors, see Kangxi Emperor for an example.

Characters

The use of italics and bold text is to be avoided with Chinese characters, as it tends to make their presentation less legible: 国 国 国 国. The templates ((nobold)), ((noitalic)), and ((normal)) can be used to remove this formatting in places where it is usually otherwise desired, such as within infoboxes.

To help establish a simple and clean appearance, if a term is wikified and has an article, do not provide characters or romanization again. For example,

Incorrect: Liu Bang (刘邦), along with King...

is unnecessary and unnatural. It should be rewritten as

Correct: Liu Bang, along with King...

which is more natural to read and less redundant. Readers who wish to see the native representation can find it on the linked article, which should have the appropriate Chinese-language text if not already present.

However, if there is no article, then it is necessary to include the characters of a name, either simplified, traditional, or both based on what is most appropriate—they are needed to disambiguate both for readers and editors, especially since not all English translations of a Chinese character term will be equivalent or intuitively related.

When used, non-English text should interrupt the flow of reading as little as possible. It should be put within parentheses, as if it were a call-out, not part of the sentence. Try reading the sentence aloud by skipping everything within the parentheses. If an English reader can read the sentence in a grammatically correct way without any unpronounceable interruption, then the sentence is in acceptable form. When tagging the language of Chinese characters using the ((zh)) template, set the labels= parameter to "no" to prevent labels from being shown, or use the shorter ((zhi)) alias. For example:

Correct: "His name was Liu Bang (刘邦)."

is acceptable, provided that there is no existing article for Liu Bang.

Incorrect: "His name was 刘邦 (Liu Bang)."

is not a readable English sentence. Chinese character insertions to list and table entries can be done without parentheses because these items are seldom read like sentences. In general, which terms are bracketed and which are outside the brackets depend heavily on context, and which aspect of the subject is being emphasised in the larger passage.

Romanisation

English Wikipedia uses Hanyu Pinyin without tone marks as the default romanisation method of Chinese characters. Pinyin should be spaced 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 ease verification by other users.

The exception is where a non-pinyin spelling is used by a clear majority of modern, reliable, secondary sources. An example is the Yangtze River (though some sources may refer to it as the Yangzi River). Another exception would be for articles on specific people:

• Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), as opposed to Sun Yixian.
• Shiing-Shen Chern (陈省身) or S. S. Chern, as opposed to Chen Xingshen.
• Chen-Ning Yang (杨振宁) or C. N. Yang, as opposed to Yang 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. (Note: Hanyu Pinyin-derived romanizations in the Republic of China (Taiwan) rarely use the syllable-dividing apostrophe (隔音符號), for instance: Daan District, Taipei City, not 'Da'an District, Taipei City'.) Tongyong Pinyin is used for the transliterations of place names in some parts of Taiwan (Republic of China), for instance Cijin District, Kaohsiung. As with the rest of the world, the local language of communication should be reflected in the article.

Where a non-pinyin romanisation has been used, other romanisations within the article should still follow the pinyin default. For example, Tsingtao Brewery is a trademark which uses a non-pinyin romanisation but an article talking about Tsingtao Brewery should still use the pinyin spelling when talking about Qingdao city:

Correct: Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd. is located in Qingdao city, Shandong.

Incorrect: Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd. is located in Tsingtao city, Shan-tung. or Tsingtao Brewery Co., Ltd. is located in Tsingtao city, Shandong.

Romanised titles of works

When the best available sources are consistent in capitalizing the Pinyin romanisation, Wikipedia should also render such titles of works in title case. When reliable sources are inconsistent or most often lowercase, the romanised title should be rendered in sentence case.^[a]

Correct: Xinxiu bencao^[1][2][3][4]

Incorrect: Xinxiu Bencao

Tones

The tone mark is added to the vowel in the syllable that comes first in this sequence: a o e i u ü. For example, ai takes the tone mark on a, and ia also takes the tone mark on a. The only exception is iu which takes the tone mark on u. Italicise pinyin to differentiate it from the English text.

To help you type pinyin, Wikipedia has clickable characters with diacritics under the edit box; you can also use ((subst:pinyin|input)) which takes pinyin with tone numbers as input (e.g. Lv3shun4kou3) and converts it to the preferred form with diacritics (Lǚshùnkǒu). Other options include Pinyinput or online converters such as Google Translate's phonetic reading function.

Keeping in mind that a word in pinyin cannot start with the letters "I," "U," or "Ü," the diacritics used are:

1. The first tone is represented by a macron (ˉ) added to the pinyin vowel:

   
   ā ē ī ō ū ǖ Ā Ē Ō

2. The second tone is denoted by an acute accent (ˊ):

   
   á é í ó ú ǘ Á É Ó

3. The third tone is symbolized by a caron (inverted circumflex) (ˇ):

   
   ǎ ě ǐ ǒ ǔ ǚ Ǎ Ě Ǒ

   1. Please do not use the breve (a curved downward circumflex) for the third tone.
4. The fourth tone is represented by a grave accent (ˋ):

   
   à è ì ò ù ǜ À È Ò

5. The fifth or neutral tone is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark:
   (There is no need to indicate neutral tones with numbers or with dots before the syllable: "·ma")

   
   a e i o u ü A E O

Tone diacritics are not used to transcribe names or terms that appear in the normal flow of an article (e.g. "...early Ming dynasty scholar Gù Yánwǔ..." or "...a bronze dǐng excavated from a Zhou dynasty tomb..."). They should only be used in templates and parentheticals (e.g. Chinese: 顧炎武; pinyin: Gù Yánwǔ) or in infoboxes.

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 appropriate Citation Style 1 or Citation Style 2 template when listing works. The following examples use Citation Style 1 templates:

((cite book |last=Doe |first=John |date=1950 |title=A Book About Sinology |location=New York |publisher=National University Press))

Doe, John (1950). A Book About Sinology. New York: National University Press.

If an author is Chinese, their name should generally use pinyin without tone marks. Access to the characters for Chinese or Japanese names is helpful. (This is not true of Korean and Vietnamese names, as those languages have now generally abandoned the use of characters.) As elsewhere, it is preferable to link to an article on the author (which can be done with the |author-link= field) and omit the 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))

Lu, Xun (1926). The True Story of Ah Q. Translated by Leung, George. Shanghai: Commercial Press.

If there is no article for the author, the characters for their name can be included in the |author-mask= field:

((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))

Li Si (李四) (1990). Yet Another Book About Sinology. London: British Publishing.

If a work is in an East Asian language, the original title should be romanized, spaces at the word boundaries, and each word capitalized, the rest given in lowercase unless they are proper nouns. Tone marks may be included. Names of publishing companies or presses are transliterated but not translated, without tone marks. The language of the work may be indicated with the |language= field.

((cite book |last=Wang |first=Aiguo |date=2016 |title=Hànxué zhī shū |location=Shanghai |publisher=Hanxue chubanshe |language=zh))

Wang, Aiguo (2016). Hànxué zhī shū (in Chinese). Shanghai: Hanxue chubanshe.

For Chinese and Japanese works, it is helpful to also include the characters of the title. These should not be italicized, which can be accomplished by using the |script-title= field. The field should include the language code zh or ja, a colon, and 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 original title. This can be accomplished by using the |trans-title= field. 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))

Yuan, Jiahua (1983). Hànyǔ fāngyán gàiyào 汉语方言槪要 [Outline of Chinese Dialects] (in Chinese). Beijing: Wenzi gaige chubanshe.

If not using the ((zh)) template or other template designed for Chinese characters, wrap Chinese characters with the ((lang)) template for accessibility and many other reasons. For example:

• Ink and wash painting (((lang|zh-Hans-CN|水墨画)))

produces:

• Ink and wash painting (水墨画)

Linking to Wiktionary

Our sister-project, Wiktionary, contains the full Unihan database, and is consequently an invaluable Chinese reference tool. All Ruby characters are automatically linked to Wiktionary. In some exceptional cases, you may need to manually insert a link to the Wiktionary entry for a character.

Look up 字 in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The ((Linktext)) template can be used to link directly to Wiktionary. For example, ((zh|c=((linktext|中国)))) produces Chinese: 中国. Separate characters with a pipe (|) symbol to link them individually. If you want to insert a link in a box to one side, use ((Wiktionarypar|字)) (see box on the right).

Ruby characters

Ruby annotation is a way of putting pinyin in small letters over the top of a Han character. It cannot be used for normal inline text on Wikipedia because the small size at which characters are displayed means that the even smaller text on top is illegible. However, it is appropriate for Han characters that have a line or paragraph to themselves. It has the advantage of keeping the transcription very close to the character, and is thus didactically helpful. In browsers that do not support it, it degrades gracefully into a transcription in parentheses after the character.

Example:

The markup to display text like this is as follows:

" ((ruby-zh-p|梦|mèng)) " displays " 梦(mèng) ".

Browser support:

• IE — Supported.
• Firefox 38 or above — Supported
• Firefox 37 or below with support installed — works fine if ruby line height adjustment is enabled (default) in the extension's options/preferences menu.
• Firefox 37 or below without support installed — displays in parentheses.
• Opera 15.0 or above — Supported
• Opera 14.x or below — displays in parentheses.
• Safari — Supported.
• Chrome — Supported.
• Android stock browser (Android 4.4) — Supported.

Lists of pages currently using this template: ruby, ruby-ja, ruby-zh-b, ruby-zh-p.

Modern Chinese polities

Following is the consensus guide on when to use which term in reference to subjects related to China. Consistency of language across all articles is not a requirement of Wikipedia. It is also not necessary that a single article use one term consistently over the other. Where "China" or the "People's Republic of China" is used, it should not be changed arbitrarily. In many contexts the terms can be used interchangeably. Which one is used in such contexts is largely a matter of editorial style. In cases where either "China" or the "People's Republic of China" both seem appropriate editors should use their own discretion.

Non-neutral terms such as "Free China" or "Red China" are to be avoided in Wikipedia's own voice.

Language

The "Chinese language" usually refers to Modern Standard Chinese (MSC, "Mandarin") in its spoken form, and Standard Written Chinese, based on the former, in its written form. Therefore, it is not necessary and often confusing to call Chinese "Mandarin", except when you are contrasting MSC to some other variety ("lect") of Chinese, such as Shanghainese or Cantonese.

The question of whether the primary lects of Chinese are languages or dialects is disputed. In lists or categories such as "Number of speakers by language" or "Films by language", categorize these lects separately if you must list more than one Chinese lect, and if the sources make the distinction (don't do original research by splitting or merging statistics for Chinese lects). As above, avoid gratuitous references to "Mandarin" when you are contrasting only MSC with other standardized world languages, such as French, Spanish, and German.

When describing loanwords, terms, place names, or personal names, it can be appropriate to include the original characters or their transliteration. Including the Shanghainese term would be appropriate for a place name in Shanghai or a Shanghainese dish; including the Taiwanese names for the same would not. On the other hand, including the MSC term is almost always appropriate, because of its status as a lingua franca and as a standard for all governments whose official language is "Chinese".

Ethnicity

When identifying people by ethnic group in China-related articles, refer to the Han people or Han rather than "Chinese people", especially when contrasting that ethnic group to other ethnic groups in China, such as Zhuang or Tibetans. "Chinese" can also refer to nationality, so be careful to avoid implying that ethnic minorities are not or should not be citizens of China. Use parallel terms, such as Han Chinese and Zhuang Chinese, or Han people and Zhuang people, or Han and Zhuang, but never Han Chinese and Zhuang people, unless the nationalities of the distinguished groups clearly differ.

Some find a distinction between "Chinese" and "Taiwanese" to be objectionable and the terms "Mainland Chinese"/"Taiwanese" are more politically neutral and use will depend on the context. The term "Mainlander" poses some issues. It is sometimes ambiguous whether this is referring to a resident of Mainland China or a member of the group that fled with the KMT to Taiwan in 1949. In referring to the latter group, the name is mildly objectionable when used in English and strongly objectionable when translated literally in Chinese. Preferred unambiguous names for the two groups are "Mainland Chinese" and "Wàishěngrén".

On world and regional maps, Taiwan should not be included as a part of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in general. (discussion) On maps specifically about the PRC, Taiwan can be included if a distinction from the mainland is made to reflect its status. For the convention on colouring Taiwan and other disputed areas, see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Maps/Conventions#Orthographic_maps.