China's ethnic minorities — a reference guide

A Turkic-speaking people of northwest China whose oasis cities along the Silk Road produced a rich tradition of music, poetry, carpets, and flatbread cuisine.

Pastoral nomads of the Tian Shan and Altai ranges whose yurt culture, horse-riding traditions, and felt craft represent one of Central Asia's most enduring ways of life.

A high-altitude nomadic people of the Pamir and Tian Shan foothills whose Manas epic poem is one of the longest oral epics in the world.

One of the smallest Muslim groups in China, historically associated with long-distance Silk Road trade between the oasis cities of Xinjiang and Central Asia.

The smallest of China's officially recognised Turkic Muslim groups, historically associated with trade and education across the Tian Shan region.

A Turkic-speaking Muslim people of the Yellow River gorge country in Qinghai whose ancestors migrated from Central Asia in the 13th century.

A small pastoral people of the Qilian Mountains in Gansu who are unique among China's Turkic-heritage groups in practising Tibetan Buddhism rather than Islam.

A small pastoral people of the Qilian Mountains in Gansu who are unique among China's Turkic-heritage groups in practising Tibetan Buddhism rather than Islam.

The nomadic people of the Eurasian steppe who established the largest contiguous land empire in history under Chinggis Khan and whose descendants maintain a distinctive herding, music, and festival culture across northern China.

A Mongolic-speaking people of the Greater Khingan Range whose shamanic traditions, hockey-like field game, and distinctive embroidery have survived in the villages of the Nenjiang River plain.

A Mongolic-speaking people of the Qinghai highlands whose colourful embroidered clothing, spirited wheel dance, and Tibetan Buddhist monastery culture define one of the plateau's distinctive communities.

A Mongolic-speaking Muslim people of the loess plateau valleys of Gansu whose ancestors were converted to Islam during the Mongol period.

A small Mongolic-speaking Muslim group of southern Gansu renowned for their decorative waist-knife craft, one of the most prized bladed traditions in northwest China.

The ruling people of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) whose military and administrative genius unified China's largest historical empire; today the Manchu population is largely assimilated but maintains cultural memory through costume, cuisine, and martial arts traditions.

A Tungusic people descended from Qing garrison soldiers sent to Xinjiang in 1764 who preserved the Manchu language and archery tradition long after it faded in the northeast.

One of China's smallest ethnic groups, the Hezhen are expert river fishers of the Heilong River system whose tradition of making clothing from fish skin is unique in the country.

A forest-hunting people of the Greater Khingan Range who until the mid-20th century lived a largely nomadic life following deer and other game through the taiga.

A Tungusic reindeer-herding and cattle-raising people of the Hulunbuir grasslands and taiga who are closely related to the Evenk of Siberia.

A Korean-speaking community of northeast China whose ancestors migrated from the Korean peninsula in the 19th and early 20th centuries, maintaining a distinctive cuisine, music, and literary tradition.

Descendants of Russian settlers and mixed-heritage families in northwest China and the northeast, maintaining Orthodox church life and Russian domestic traditions.

High-altitude herders of the Pamir Plateau near the Karakoram and Hindu Kush, the Tajik of China follow Ismaili Shia Islam and practise eagle hunting and a distinctive embroidery tradition at elevations above 3,000 metres.

One of China's oldest recorded peoples, the Qiang inhabit the steep river valleys of northern Sichuan's Min Mountains and are noted for their stone tower architecture and nature-worship traditions.

The people of the Tibetan Plateau, whose distinctive Buddhist civilisation, monumental monastery architecture, and high-altitude pastoral culture developed across an area the size of Western Europe.

One of southwest China's largest ethnic minorities, the Yi people of the Liangshan mountains maintain a distinctive syllabic writing system, a fire-worship festival tradition, and a bimo priesthood that preserves ancient cosmological knowledge.

The keepers of Dongba, one of the world's last living pictographic writing systems, the Naxi inhabit the spectacular valley town of Lijiang and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain foothills.

Builders of the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces — a UNESCO World Heritage landscape of sculpted mountainsides that has been maintained by Hani communities for over a thousand years.

A mountain people of the Nu River gorge country in Yunnan, distinctive for their knife-pole climbing festival and for being one of the few groups in China with a substantial Christian community established through early 20th-century missionary work.

A hunter-farming people of the Mekong highlands in southern Yunnan, known for distinctive woven textiles and the葫芦笙 (hulusheng) gourd pipe that is central to communal dance.

A mountain people of the western Yunnan border hills whose Munao Zongge festival — with its mass dance circles and decorated poles — is one of the most visually powerful communal events in Yunnan.

One of China's smallest and most geographically isolated ethnic groups, the Drung live in a single river valley cut off by snow for five months each year, and older women traditionally wore facial tattoo patterns.

A small river-valley people of the Nu (Salween) River gorge in Yunnan who live alongside Lisu, Tibetan, and Drung neighbours in one of the steepest inhabited landscapes in Asia.

A highland people of northwestern Yunnan who descended from pastoral groups originating on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and maintain a distinctive oral epic tradition and cattle-centred ritual culture.

A small Tibeto-Burman people of western Yunnan's Dehong plain, noted for producing the Husa knife — a hand-forged blade of outstanding quality — and for their Theravada Buddhist religious tradition shared with Dai neighbours.

The last ethnic group to be officially recognised by China (1979), the Jino inhabit a single mountain in Xishuangbanna and are closely associated with wild tea cultivation on Jino Mountain (Youle).

A small people of the deep river gorges of southern Tibet, closely related culturally to Bhutan and sharing the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, known for bamboo weaving and hand-made paper from the bark of the Edgeworthia plant.

China's smallest officially recognised ethnic group by population, the Lhoba inhabit the remote forested river valleys of southeastern Tibet and maintain a hunter-gathering and farming lifestyle in one of Asia's most geographically isolated areas.

One of China's larger ethnic minorities, the Tujia of the western Hunan-Hubei border region are known for their hanging-stilted houses, hand-woven Xilankapu brocade, and a tradition of mourning with joy at funerals through song and dance.

The people of the Erhai lakeside in Yunnan, known for their white-and-blue architecture, Three Pagodas landmark, tie-dye textile tradition, and the Three Streets Three Roads market festival.

China's largest ethnic minority, the Zhuang are a Tai-speaking people of the limestone hills and river valleys of Guangxi whose bronze drum tradition, brocade weaving, and Three Sisters Festival mark a distinctive culture within southern China.

A Tai-speaking stone village people of the plateau-edge gorge country of southern Guizhou, known for batik wax-print fabrics, hand-papermaking from bark, and antiphonal song festivals.

A tropical lowland people of southern Yunnan's river basins whose Theravada Buddhist monasteries, stilted bamboo houses, Water Splashing Festival, and aromatic cuisine create one of China's most distinctive cultural landscapes.

The builders of China's covered rain-and-wind bridges and drum towers, the Dong are a Kam-Sui-speaking people of the Guizhou-Hunan-Guangxi border mountains whose polyphonic choral singing (Kam Grand Choir) is recognised by UNESCO.

A Kam-Sui-speaking people of southeastern Guizhou who possess the Shuishu — one of the world's rarest indigenous writing systems — and celebrate a New Year festival (Duan) in autumn rather than spring.

A Kam-Sui-speaking people of northern Guangxi's karst hills known for their carved bamboo hat tradition, cattle-centred ritual culture, and a distinctive Daoist-influenced ceremony called Fenglong.

A Kam-Sui-speaking people of northern Guangxi's coal country whose Yifan ceremony — a multi-day communal feast and ritual drama — is the centrepiece of their communal religious calendar.

An ancient Guizhou people considered by some scholars to be descendants of the historical Liao and Yelang peoples, the Gelao maintain a rooster-centred worship tradition and distinctive stone-drilling craft.

The indigenous people of Hainan Island whose kapok and cotton backstrap-loom weaving produced fabrics of international fame during the Song and Yuan dynasties, and whose mountainous central Hainan homeland remains a centre of Hlai cultural life.

One of China's largest and most geographically dispersed minorities, the Miao are known for elaborate silver headdresses, hand-embroidered clothing that encodes ancestral history, and the Lusheng reed-pipe music of their mountaintop festivals.

A wide-ranging mountain people of southern China whose communities extend from Guangxi to Yunnan and whose women's long hair tradition and Daoist Panwang ceremony are distinctive cultural markers.

A dispersed mountain people of coastal southeastern China who speak a largely Sinified language but maintain distinctive embroidered dress, phoenix headdresses for women, and a mythology centred on their dog-ancestor Panhu.

A Mon-Khmer-speaking mountain people of the Yunnan-Myanmar border whose wood-drum tradition, distinctive bamboo architecture, and hair-cutting festivals are cultural touchstones of the Wa Highlands.

An ancient tea-cultivating people of the Xishuangbanna mountains credited with first cultivating the trees that became the basis of Yunnan's celebrated pu-er tea tradition.

One of China's smallest ethnic groups and one of the oldest peoples in the western Yunnan border area, the De'ang are Theravada Buddhists known for their rattan waist-ring tradition and village tea cultivation.

A Vietnamese-origin coastal people of three small islands in Guangxi, the Gin are the only sea-fishing ethnic minority in southern China and are the only Mon-Khmer speaking group on the Chinese coast.

The collective official designation for Taiwan's Aboriginal peoples, whose mainland China population is very small but whose Austronesian languages and cultural heritage represent a distinctive family on the official ethnic map.

China's largest Muslim ethnic group, descended from Arab, Persian, and Central Asian traders and soldiers who settled in China from the Tang dynasty onward and became culturally Chinese while maintaining Islamic religious practice.