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The surname “Lin” (林) is the Mandarin Chinese form of a Chinese surname for “Forest” or “Trees”. A 2006 academic study ranked “Lin” as 16th most populous surname out of over 4100 Chinese surnames, and it’s estimated that there are over 14 millions people in the world with this last name.
Most of the Lins live in Southern China. Fujian province ranks first, (over 4.7 millions), and Canton comes in second (3.1 millions). In Taiwan, there are over 2 millions people with this surname. This family name is also common among the Malaysian Chinese community. 
However, because the vast majority of Chinese Malaysians romanized their surnames according to the pronunciations of their respective southern Chinese dialects, it is very rarely romanized as “Lin”. The Hakka, Hokkien, Teochew and Hainan communities romanize it as “Lim” whereas the Cantonese-speaking community uses “Lam”. The goals of this website are not only to provide history of Lin family, but also to focus on the success of the Jia-Dong (Taiwan) branch of Lin. We hope that this Lin family tree website can provide a platform where future Lin generations, especially the Jia-Dong branch in Taiwan, can visit and obtain valuable and accurate information of their roots.
