Short answers, pulled from the story.
Chun-Li was first released in 1991 with the launch of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. She became the first female playable fighter to gain mainstream recognition in the fighting game genre.
Artist Akira Yasuda, known as Akiman, drew inspiration from Tao, a Chinese female character in the 1983 anime film Harmagedon: Genma Wars. He finalized her design within five weeks after the team decided to change her outfit from pants to tights before sprite creation.
Producer Yoshiki Okamoto wanted her life bar to be shorter because he believed women were not as strong as male opponents. Developer Akira Nishitani disagreed with that logic and they agreed to keep the life bar equal to others.
Ming-Na Wen played Chun-Li in the 1994 Street Fighter film while Kristin Kreuk portrayed her in the 2009 film Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Jackie Chan played a parody version in the 1993 live-action adaptation of City Hunter and Chingmy Yau and Kingdom Yuen played mother-daughter teams in Future Cops.
Chun-Li appeared in all titles of the long-running Marvel vs. Capcom series starting with X-Men vs. Street Fighter. She also starred in Shadow Lady, a dark version transformed into a brainwashed cyborg under Bison's orders, and appeared as a boss in the platform game Street Fighter X Mega Man.