Cantonese is spoken by people in Southern China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia and Singapore, as well as places with many overseas Chinese who came from Cantonese-speaking parts of China, such as Melbourne. It is also the most common language of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and North America. It is said that over 100,000,000 people speak Cantonese. It is a tonal language with 6 kinds of tones. While Cantonese is only the third most spoken dialect of Chinese, only behind Mandarin and Wu, its official status in Hong Kong and Macau make it widely known among other Chinese dialects.