List of common Chinese surnames

These are lists of the most common Chinese surnames in the People's Republic of China (Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China), the Republic of China (Taiwan), and the Chinese diaspora overseas as provided by government or academic sources. Chinese names also form the basis for many common Cambodian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese surnames, and to an extent, Filipino surnames in both translation and transliteration into those languages. The conception of China as consisting of the "old hundred families" (Chinese: 老百姓; pinyin: Lǎo Bǎi Xìng; lit. 'Old Hundred Surnames') is an ancient and traditional one, the most notable tally being the Song-era Hundred Family Surnames (Chinese: 百家姓; pinyin: Bǎi Jiā Xìng). Even today, the number of surnames in China is a little over 4,000, while the 2000 United States census found there are more than 6 million surnames altogether and that the number of surnames held by 100 or more Americans (per name) was just over 150,000. The Chinese expression "Three Zhang Four Li" (simplified Chinese: 张三李四; traditional Chinese: 張三李四; pinyin: Zhāng Sān Lǐ Sì) is used to mean "anyone" or "everyone", but the most common surnames are currently Wang in mainland China and Chen in Taiwan. A commonly cited factoid from the 1990 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records estimated that Zhang was the most common surname in the world, but no comprehensive information from China was available at the time and more recent editions have not repeated the claim. However, Zhang Wei (张伟) is the most common full name in mainland China. The top five surnames in China – Wang, Li, Zhang, Liu, Chen – are also the top five surnames in the world, each with over 70-100 million worldwide.