People Group Resources

The People's Republic of China recognizes 56 people, or ethnic groups, in China. Fifty-five of these are considered minority groups; the last is comprised of the Han people who make up the majority of China's population. The minority groups form about seven per cent of China's population while the Han comprise the remaining 93%. However, upon examination, it becomes apparent that the 55 minority nationalities are actually umbrella groups that gather together hundreds of different people groups. Under each of these umbrella groups there are groups with significant cultural differences as well as groups with various dialects and sub-dialects-some mutually unintelligible.

The identification of the 55 recognized minority groups dates back to the early 1950s when the Chinese government invited leaders from these groups to register their group with the government to be considered for official recognition. The results were overwhelming with the names of over 400 groups submitted. Over the next 20 years, the government carried out further research and, by combining groups into broad ethnic classifications, in 1976 had reduced the number to 51. Since then, four more groups have been added. These artificially constructed categories have often created tension between ethnic groups who have been classified together but see themselves as very different peoples.

It is difficult to know how many people groups actually exist in China. An ethnologue lists 205 ethno-linguistic groups in China. Paul Hattaway, a researcher of people groups of China, in his recently published Operation China, provides profiles on 490 minority peoples.

While most people see the large Han majority as a homogeneous group, this is a false assumption. The peoples of China speak a multitude of diverse languages and dialects and the Han people can also be broken down into subgroups. At present, 29 ethno-linguistic subgroups among the Han have been identified. However, another way of looking at the Han people is to use sociological groupings. When the goal is to discover the natural people groupings within which values and ideologies spread without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance, both ethno-linguistic and sociological groupings are valid. Sociologically, people groups may be identified by generational differences, educational levels, occupations, socio-economic status and a variety of other defining criteria. The crucial issue is how they see themselves. Most people will be part of several different sociologically-defined groups.

The more than 100 million people that form the minority groups occupy 62.5% of China's territory with the remainder of the land being occupied by the 1.2 billion Han people. Traditionally, the minority groups lived in rural areas, often in western and southwestern parts of the country with the Han found on the coast and in the eastern areas. Today, with rapid urbanization and movement between rural areas and the cities, the lines are not quite so clear-cut. In 1997, The State Ethnic Affairs Commission estimated that 20% of the total minority population was living in the cities. For example, 3.8% of Beijing's population is comprised of minority peoples from all 55 of the officially recognized nationalities.