Besides modern standard Chinese and various Chinese, overseas Chinese also use the local language of their country of residence. Early Chinese immigrants in western countries usually use Cantonese, while recent Chinese immigrants mostly use Mandarin. In Southeast Asia, Southern Chinese (mainly Minnan, Cantonese and Hakka) is most commonly used.

At present, overseas Chinese mainly live in Southeast Asia, Europe and North America. Because of its proximity to China, Southeast Asia has been the destination of China immigrants since the late Qing Dynasty. Singapore, where there is a relative majority, and Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, where there are relative minorities. Overseas Chinese in these areas, also known as overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and overseas Chinese in South China, mainly come from Fujian and Guangdong provinces.

During the period from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, China immigrants mainly went to Southeast Asia and North America. In the 194s, there were 11 million overseas Chinese, of whom 1 million were scattered in Europe and America, and 1 million were scattered in Nanyang Islands. Of these 1 million people, about 67 million were from Guangdong. Assuming that Guangdong has a population of 3 million, one in five people is an overseas Chinese [33]. But now the total number of overseas Chinese is about 5 million.

in the early days of the People's Republic of China, the population was still free to move. Since then, the population movement has stagnated. With the reform and opening up, since the 198s, the opportunities for ordinary people to emigrate have increased. With the increase of China people's income and education, the number of skilled immigrants has also started to increase. In addition to Europe and North America, Australia and New Zealand, which are sparsely populated by Chinese, have also become popular immigrant places today, and Southeast Asia, which has relatively close culture and economic development, also has some immigrants. And travel to distant Africa, South America (such as Brazil) is also increasing [34].