Cantonese dialect

Cantonese
廣東話 ／ 广东话 Gwóngdūng Wá / gwong2 dung1 waa2
Gwóngdūng Wá / gwong2 dung1 waa2 (Cantonese) written in traditional Chinese (left) and simplified Chinese (right) characters
Native to	China, Hong Kong, Macau, overseas communities
Region	Liangguang (Guangdong and Guangxi)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Chinese Yue Yuehai Cantonese
Dialects	Guangzhou Xiguan Hong Kong
Writing system	Written Cantonese Cantonese Braille Written Chinese
Official status
Official language in	Hong Kong  Macau
Regulated by	Official Language Division Civil Service Bureau Government of Hong Kong Departamento dos Assuntos Linguísticos Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau () Government of Macau
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
ISO 639-6	yyef (Yue F) guzh (Guangzhou)
Glottolog	cant1236
Linguasphere	79-AAA-ma

Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken within the vicinity of Guangzhou (known historically as Canton) and neighbouring areas, in southeastern China. It is the traditional prestige dialect of Yue Chinese, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese.

In mainland China, Cantonese serves as a principal lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and eastern Guangxi. It is the majority language of the Pearl River Delta. In the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese is one of their official languages. The language is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia (most notably in Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as in Singapore and Cambodia to a lesser extent) and throughout the Western world.

While the term Cantonese refers specifically to the prestige variety, it is often used in a broader sense for the entire Yue branch of Chinese, including related but largely mutually unintelligible languages and dialects such as Taishanese. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, there are about 80 million total speakers.