Chinese set to overtake English as dominant language online

The statistics are in: The Chinese language is positioned to surpass English as the most prevalent language on the World Wide Web.

In 2010, China added 36 million Internet users to its roster, bringing the total number of Chinese people online to 450 million, according to China’s State Council Information Office. That’s over a third of China’s population, and 140 million more people than live in the U.S.

And the number is steadily climbing.

English is still more widely spoken than Chinese globally, and the bulk of web pages are currently published in the English language, but it seems that will not be the case for much longer. A Nextweb infographic shows that, with Internet use in China increasing at such an astounding speed, Chinese will most likely become the most prevalent language on the Internet within five years’ time.

This is just one item in a long list of indicators proving that China is rapidly rising. The Middle Kingdom is awake, and its power and influence are growing at an alarming speed.