Han Chinese
East Asian ethnic group native to China / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Han Chinese or Han people[lower-alpha 1] and colloquially known as the Chinese[17] are an East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. They are the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 17.5% of the global population.
汉族; 漢族 | |
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Total population | |
1.4 billion[1] | |
Regions with significant populations | |
China | 1.29 billion[2] |
Taiwan | 22 million[3][4] |
Thailand | 7.05 million[5] |
Malaysia | 6.91 million[6] |
United States | 3.80–5.79 million[7][8] |
Indonesia | 2.83 million[9] |
Singapore | 2.67 million[10] |
Myanmar | 1.64 million[11] |
Canada | 1.47 million[12] |
Philippines | 1.35 million[13] |
Australia | 1.21 million[14] |
Vietnam | 992,600[15] |
Japan | 922,000[16] |
Languages | |
Chinese | |
Religion | |
Irreligion, Buddhism, Chinese folk religion, Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity, Islam | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Han Chinese | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Traditional Chinese | 漢族 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 汉族 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Literal meaning | Han ethnic group | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group in China — including mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau — with a global population of over 1.4 billion. They have had the greatest influence on the development and growth of Chinese civilization.[2] In Taiwan, Han Taiwanese make up about 97% of the population.[18][19] People of Han Chinese descent also make up around 75 percent of Singapore's population.[20] The term "Han" not only refers to a specific ethnic collective, but also represents an identity belonging to a distinctive people denoted with a particular set of behavioral attributes, cultural traits, genetic markers, historical background, mutual ancestral commonalities, shared fates, and societal characteristics which has exerted a significant formative influence in shaping the development and growth of Chinese civilization.[21][22][23]
Originating from the Central Plains (中原; Zhōngyuán) region, the Han Chinese trace their ancestry to the Huaxia, a confederation of agricultural tribes that lived along the Yellow River.[24][25][26][27][28][29][26] This confederation of tribes were the ancestors of the modern Han Chinese people as well as the progenitors of Chinese civilization.[30] Today the term Zhongyuan carries a special significance. It can be used to refer to Han China as a whole by way of a linguistic synecdoche (the use of a part to refer to the whole).
The term "Huaxia" was used by the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius's contemporaries, during the Warring States era, to elucidate the shared ethnicity of all Chinese;[31] Chinese people called themselves Hua Ren.[32] The Warring States period saw the emergence of the early discernible ethnic consciousness among the Zhou-era Chinese, who referred to themselves as Huaxia (literally, "the beautiful grandeur"). The term was used to adumbrate a "civilized" culture in contrast to what were perceived as "barbaric", the latter term referring to different non-Han Chinese peoples around the Zhou Kingdoms. [33][28][34][35]
People of Han Chinese ancestry who possess foreign citizenship are commonly referred to as Hua persons (华人; 華人; Huárén) or Huazu (华族; 華族; Huázú). They understand Hua to mean the group denominated nowadays by the Han Chinese, regardless of actual nationality. In this usage, the term Hua is semantically distinct from Zhongguo Ren (中国人; 中國人), which refers to citizens and nationals of China, including people of non-Han Chinese ethnicity.[36][37][22]
The Huaxia tribes in Northern China continuously expanded into Southern China over the past two millennia, via military conquests and colonisation.[38][39] Huaxia culture spread southward from its northern heartland in the Yellow River Basin into the south, spread by large, successive waves of Han Chinese refugees fleeing political turmoil and nomadic invasions in the Central Plains. These Han Chinese refugees quickly occupied the fertile river valleys of southern China, gradually absorbing and acculturating the various non-Han ethnic groups in a process known as sinicization.[40][39][28]
The name "Han people" first appeared during the era of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and was inspired by the Han dynasty, which is considered to be one of the first golden ages in Chinese history. As a unified and cohesive empire, Han China emerged as the center of East Asian geopolitical influence at the time, projecting much of its hegemony onto its East Asian neighbours and was comparable with the contemporary Roman Empire in population size, geographical and cultural reach.[41][42][43][44] The Han dynasty's prestige and prominence influenced many of the ancient Huaxia to identify themselves as "The People of Han."[33][45][46][47][48] To this day, the Han Chinese have since taken their ethnic name from this dynasty and the Chinese script is referred to as "Han characters."[42][49][47]