A report on Shaanxi, Henan and Central Plains Mandarin

Central Plains Mandarin, or Zhongyuan Mandarin, is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in the central and southern parts of Shaanxi, Henan, southwestern part of Shanxi, southern part of Gansu, far southern part of Hebei, northern Anhui, northern parts of Jiangsu, southern Xinjiang and southern Shandong.

Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), Ningxia (NW) and Inner Mongolia (N).

Its neighboring provinces are Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Anhui, and Hubei.

Mandarin is mainly spoken in Shaanxi, including Zhongyuan Mandarin and Southwestern Mandarin; another variety of Chinese, Jin(Shanxi Hua), is also spoken.

Most of Henan speaks dialects of the Mandarin group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China. Linguists put these dialects into the category of "Zhongyuan Mandarin". The northwestern corner of Henan is an exception, where people speak Jin dialects instead. The dialects of Henan are collectively called "the Henan dialect" in popular usage, with easily identifiable stereotypical features.