The yuan is, in the Chinese language, the base unit of a number of modern Chinese currencies. The same character is used to refer to the cognate currency units of Korea and Japan, and is used to translate the currency unit "dollar"; for example, the US dollar is called Meiyuan (美元), or "American yuan", in Chinese. When used in English in the context of the modern foreign exchange market, the "Yuan" or "Chinese yuan" most commonly refers to the renminbi (CNY). The distinction between yuan and renminbi is analogous to that between pound and sterling.

One yuan is divided into 10 jiao (角) or colloquially "feathers" (mao) (毛). One jiao is divided into 10 fen (分). In Cantonese, widely spoken in Hong Kong and Macau, jiao and fen are called ho (毫) and sin (仙). "Sin" is a word borrowed into Cantonese from the English "cent".