Chen was the third son in a large family from Fuzhou, Fujian, China.

Chen Jingrun graduated from the Mathematics Department of Xiamen University in 1953.

[2] After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Xu Chi wrote a biography of Chen entitled Goldbach's Conjecture (哥德巴赫猜想).

Chen became a household name in China and received a sackful of love letters from all over the country within two months.

At Xiamen University, the names of Chen and four other mathematicians — Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Matti Jutila, Yuri Linnik, and Pan Chengdong — are inscribed in the marble slab behind Chen's statue (see image).