There are about eight million speakers of Central Kurdish (Sorani) in Iran and Iraq. Unlike Iran, in Iraq the language enjoys an official status at both regional (Kurdistan Regional Government) and federal levels. This chapter presents a chronological history of the emergence, development and standardization of written Central Kurdish in Kurdistan (Iran and Iraq) and diasporas. It underlines language planning achievements to date and the challenges the language faces in terms of corpus planning, status and recognition and acquisition planning (its teaching and learning). Debates over what this variety should be called and a detailed breakdown of the population of its speakers are presented.