China's Ethnic Minorities
Of the 1.3 billion people now live in China, about 1.2 billion are “Chinese Chinese” or Han Chinese as they’re known in China. The name Han came from the Han Dynasty that reigned China from 206 B.C. to 220 A.D.
The rest of the Chinese people are China’s ethnic minorities, with a total population of over 100 million. Altogether 56 ethnic minority groups are officially identified and recognized in China. Of these, two have populations larger than 10 million – the Zhuang and Manchu; 16 have populations ranging between one million and 10 million, including the Mongols, Hui, Tibetans, Uigurs, Miao, Yi, and Koreans; The 7 smallest groups have populations below 10,000. Linguistically speaking, more than half of these groups (31) belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family, 18 speak Altaic languages, three are of Southern-Asian origins, two are Indo-European, one has close link to the Malay-Polynesian group, and one is of undetermined identity. With a few exceptions, differences in physical appearance among China’s ethnic groups are relatively unpronounced, more along the line of those that exist among Caucasian Europeans than between American whites and blacks.
While China’s ethnic minorities can be found all across country, the majority of them live in remote regions, the borderlands. Administratively there are five “Autonomous Regions.” These are equivalents of provinces specifically designed for a few minority groups with largest populations - Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Gansu Hui Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, Tibetan Autonomous Region, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonmous Region. The Manchu, which is the second largest minority group, does not have an autonomous region of its own. The Manchu, who originally came from Manchuria, conquered China in the 17th century and their dynasty reigned over China till early 20th century; during this period significant cultural assimilation took place, and nowadays it is rather difficult to tell a Manchu apart from a Han Chinese; few Manchu today speak their own tongue or distinguish themselves from Han Chinese in some other ways.
In addition to administrative autonomy, minority groups in China also enjoy some other benefits, among which is special treatment that exempts them from the country’s strict population-control policies. As result, in recent decades minority populations have been growing faster than the Han population, although this has in no way threatened the dominant position of the latter.
The existence of ethnic minorities in China adds a great deal to the cultural diversity of the country. The different languages, customs, artistic traditions and lifestyles enrich China’s national experience as a whole, and they also make China travel so much more fun. Tours through Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and southwestern regions such as Yunnan where China’s smaller minority groups concentrate reveal landscape and cultures significantly different from those in China proper, reminding the tourists of the vast size of the country and the great variety in Chinese life.
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