Charlie Chan is a fictional Chinese American detective created by Earl Derr Biggers, reportedly in part under inspiration from the career of Honolulu policeman Chang Apana. Chan is the hero of a number of books and dozens of movies. At first a sergeant (but later promoted) in the Honolulu Police Department, he and his wife have fourteen children (the oldest of whom is colloquially known as "Number One Son") and live in a house on Punchbowl Hill. He is a large man but moves gracefully, and is known when asked in the Warner Oland films, to not have a strong drink, but a sarsaparilla instead.

Chan was born in China and immigrated to Hawaii when very young. He is a faithful husband and proud patriarch of a "multitudinous family" of fourteen children. Seen as kindly, insightful and wise, a teetotaler and dispenser of appropriate aphorisms. Ancient Chinese philosopher say, "Hope is sunshine which illuminate darkest path". (Charlie Chan at the Olympics) Identified in early stories as a sergeant he was quickly promoted and known afterward as lieutenant or inspector. In later films he is often seen working as a special agent for the U.S. government and toward the end of the run is portrayed as being in private practice. During the course of the series he traveled to over two dozen cities, five of the 7 continents and is mentioned as having worked on a case in Australia.

Far from a negative stereotype, Charlie Chan stood like a beacon, a positive example, in an era when most Asians were thought as nothing more than house boys, laundrymen or inscrutable villains in the Fu Man Chu mold. Appearing in more than three dozen films from the silent era to the late 1940s Chan outlasted many imitators and competitors rising to the ranks of the greatest movie investigators to stand alongside Sherlock Holmes, Nick Charles, The Thin Man and Sam Spade.