We establish a well-posedness theory and a blow-up criterion for the Chaplygin gas equations in ℝN for any dimension N≥1. First, given ω=1ρ, ℋ↪𝒞0,1, we prove the well-posedness property for solutions v=(ω,u) in the space ℋ for the Cauchy problem associated with the Chaplygin gas equations, provided the initial density ρ0 is bounded below. We also prove that the solution of the Chaplygin gas equations depends continuously upon its initial data v0 in 𝒞([0,T[;Bσ2,r) if Bσ2,r↪𝒞0,1, and we state a blow-up criterion for the solutions in the classical BMO space. Finally, using Osgood’s modulus of continuity, we establish a refined blow-up criterion of the solutions.