This article reviews corpus-based Chinese studies, both applied and theoretical, from the 1920s to the present. It will be shown that, while corpus-based Chinese studies have been gaining momentum for only the last couple of decades, the roots of Chinese corpus linguistics go all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century. Today the bulk of corpus-based Chinese studies is oriented toward applied linguistics, with the compilation of frequency character/word lists and interlanguage Chinese studies being the most popular types of research. In addition to applied linguistic studies, this overview also highlights some innovative corpus studies on lexical and grammatical aspects of both classical and modern Chinese, as well as studies of sociolinguistic variation and discourse pragmatics. Overall, important groundwork in Chinese corpus linguistics is acknowledged and future directions are discussed.