The Overseas Chinese Population in Circa-2011

In circa-2011, there were over 40 million Chinese people living outside China (broadly defined). We discuss the data on the overseas Chinese; we show their distribution among the world's countries and regions. We discuss their patterns of change in past decades. We present recent data on the larger of the non-Chinese diasporas to enable us to better evaluate the significance and importance of the Chinese diaspora. We discuss the major patterns of previous Chinese emigrations. Then we present our data on and analyses of the overseas Chinese around 2011. The overseas Chinese population in the world in 2011 is larger than the population of Poland and Canada, and almost as large as Argentina. The Chinese diaspora is the third largest in the world, behind Ireland and Germany. The overseas Chinese continue to have important and significant influences in many host countries and are certainly not an inconsequential population.