Hong Kong is an officially bilingual territory. Under article 9 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, and the Official Languages Ordinance, Both Chinese and English are equally official languages of the territory. However, no particular variety of "Chinese" referred to in laws is specified. While Mandarin written in simplified Chinese characters is used as the standard language in mainland China, Cantonese (Hong Kong Cantonese) in traditional Chinese characters is the de facto standard in Hong Kong.