16. Chinese Nationalities (Han) -- Minorities by Alphabetic Sequence

Han Nationality

The Han Nationality is about 92% of the Country's population. Border regions are embroidered with the homelands of most of China's 55 minority peoples. Though only 8 percent of the population, these groups number some 56 million and inhabit more than half of the country's territory, much of its deserts, steppes, or mountains. The national minorities, as they are called in China, differ in one or more of the following ways: language, customs, historical development, religion, and race. The minorities have been exempted from the national birth-control campaign but not the Han. These diverse peoples supply most of China's livestock, have in their territories most of China's mineral resources and inhabit China's borders. The Han are part of the Sino-Tibetan Sinoitic ethno linguistic group.