Mandarin (aka Pu Tong Hua) is the standard Chinese language spoken in the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. It is also one of the four official languages of Singapore. In addition, millions of overseas Chinese people use Mandarin. Despite the fact that there are 56 nationalities and many local dialects in China, everyone speaks Mandarin Chinese as it is a compulsory subject in primary schools, high schools and even in universities nationally.
Mandarin (Pu Tong Hua) is developed from the Beijing dialect. Although the two share great similarities, they are not exactly the same. News readers on CCTV (China Central Television, the equivalent of BBC in the UK) use Pu Tong Hua, not the Beijing dialect. It is a myth that you have to find a Mandarin teacher who is originally from Beijing. In fact, locals from Beijing still need to learn and practice in order to have decent Pu Tong Hua.
By the way, Cantonese is another popular Chinese dialect (mainly spoken by people in Hong Kong and in Guangdong, China, as well as some overseas Chinese from those areas). It is quite different from Mandarin. With China's rapid economic growth and its rising status on the international arena, even the used-to-be proud Hong Kong people are learning and using Mandarin nowadays.
The point is, if you decide to learn Chinese, I suggest you learn Mandarin (Pu Tong Hua) which is spoken by over 1 billion people in the world.
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