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Han

The Han Chinese are an East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China, forming the world's largest single ethnic group with a population of approximately 1.286 billion as of China's 2020 census, accounting for 91.11% of the country's total inhabitants.^[1]^[2] Named after the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), during which foundational aspects of Chinese statecraft, Confucian orthodoxy, and technological innovations such as papermaking and seismography emerged, the Han identity coalesced through the assimilation of diverse ancient groups like the Huaxia and non-Han populations via expansion and cultural integration rather than solely biological descent.^[3]^[4] Genetically, modern Han exhibit a north-south genetic gradient, with northern Han showing affinities to ancient Yellow River populations and southern Han reflecting admixture from southern indigenous groups, underscoring a history of migration and intermixing over millennia.^[5]^[6] Culturally defined by Sinitic languages, patrilineal clans, ancestral veneration, and an agrarian ethos that distinguished them from nomadic neighbors, the Han have dominated continental East Asia politically and demographically, fostering enduring institutions like imperial bureaucracy and the Silk Road trade networks.^[7] While this hegemony involved the Sinicization of minorities—often through coercive or economic means—resulting in a relatively homogeneous core identity, subgroup dialects and customs persist, challenging notions of monolithic uniformity.^[4] In contemporary contexts, Han dominance underpins China's multi-ethnic framework, though debates persist over the ethnic label's fluidity and the state's role in its perpetuation amid global diasporas exceeding 50 million.^[8]

Nomenclature and Identity

Etymology and historical terms

The designation "Han" for China's majority ethnic group derives from the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), the second imperial dynasty following the Qin unification of 221 BCE, during which the term began to symbolize cultural and political continuity for the inhabitants of the Central Plains. The dynasty's name originated from the Han River (modern Hanzhong region in Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces), a tributary of the Yangtze that marked an early administrative center under Liu Bang, the dynasty's founder.^[9]^[10] Although records from the Han era, such as the Hou Hanshu (Book of the Later Han, compiled circa 445 CE), occasionally used "Hanren" (Han people) to refer to subjects of the dynasty, the term did not consistently denote an ethnic category until the Northern and Southern Dynasties period (420–589 CE), when it distinguished southern Chinese populations from northern "barbarian" (hu) conquerors amid fragmentation after the dynasty's fall in 220 CE. Usage varied thereafter; for instance, during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), "Han" sometimes functioned as a synonym for the empire rather than a strict ethnic marker, reflecting fluid boundaries in multi-ethnic rule.^[8]^[11] Pre-Han self-references emphasized cultural rather than strictly ethnic lines, with terms like Huaxia (华夏), denoting the civilized agricultural tribes of the Yellow River valley from the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) onward, or Xia and Hua (from the legendary Xia dynasty circa 2070–1600 BCE), which connoted centrality and ritual propriety against peripheral nomads. These archaic designations persisted into the Han period in texts like the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian, circa 94 BCE), but "Han" gradually supplanted them as the dynasty's prestige—evidenced by its expansion to over 50 million registered population by 2 CE—fostered retrospective identification with its institutions, including the imperial examination system and Confucian orthodoxy.^[6]^[12]

Modern ethnic classification

The Han Chinese are officially classified in the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the predominant ethnic nationality (minzu) among the 56 state-recognized groups, a system formalized through the Ethnic Classification Project (minzu shibie) launched in the early 1950s. This project, spanning 1953 to the late 1950s, involved ethnographic surveys across provinces to identify and delineate groups based on factors such as shared language, territory, economy, and cultural psychology, resulting in the Han as the residual majority category encompassing those not fitting minority designations.^[13]^[14] The classification serves the PRC's framework of a multi-ethnic state, where Han form the demographic and cultural core, while the 55 minorities receive targeted policies like affirmative action in education and employment to promote unity under the Zhonghua minzu (Chinese nation) concept.^[15] Under this system, Han identity is defined primarily through self-identification, patrilineal descent, and adherence to Sinitic linguistic and cultural norms, rather than strict genetic or territorial criteria, allowing for the inclusion of historically assimilated populations from non-Han origins. Subgroups such as speakers of Wu, Yue (Cantonese), Min, Hakka, and Xiang dialects—differentiated by regional languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees and distinct customs—are not granted separate minzu status but integrated into the Han category, reflecting a state emphasis on cultural assimilation and national cohesion over internal fragmentation.^[16] This aggregation has been critiqued by some anthropologists as a form of social engineering that prioritizes political stability, potentially overlooking pre-modern ethnic distinctions for the sake of a unified majority identity.^[13] In practice, ethnic classification is recorded at birth via household registration (hukou) and census data, with limited provisions for reclassification in cases of disputed ancestry, though such changes have become rarer since the 1980s to prevent abuse of minority benefits. Outside the PRC, such as in Taiwan or among the diaspora, Han classification aligns similarly with cultural self-identification but lacks the same state-imposed structure, often emphasizing overseas Chinese (huaqiao) ties over rigid minzu boundaries. Genetic studies indicate clinal variation within Han populations—northern Han showing greater affinity to ancient Yellow River Valley groups and southern to Yangtze and coastal ancestries—but these do not influence official ethnic designations, which remain socio-cultural rather than biological.^[17]^[4]

Origins and Genetics

Archaeological and prehistoric roots

The prehistoric roots of the Han Chinese trace to Neolithic agricultural communities in the Yellow River basin, where early farming societies emerged amid the Mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum around 9000 BP, characterized by warmer, wetter conditions that supported the transition from foraging to settled millet cultivation.^[18] These populations developed in the middle and lower reaches of the river, with initial sites featuring pit houses, pottery, and evidence of domesticated crops like foxtail and broomcorn millet, marking the onset of intensive agriculture in northern China.^[19] The Yangshao culture, flourishing from roughly 7000 to 5000 years ago in the central Yellow River region, exemplifies this foundational phase, with archaeological sites revealing dispersed villages, painted pottery vessels, and communal rituals centered on ancestor veneration.^[20] ^[21] Key excavations, such as those at Banpo near Xi'an, uncover house clusters surrounded by ditches, alongside tools for grinding grains and early weaving, indicating a millet-based economy that sustained population growth and cultural continuity.^[22] This culture's demic expansions radiated from the Wei River valley, influencing surrounding regions through trade and migration, as evidenced by shared ceramic styles and settlement patterns.^[21] Succeeding the Yangshao, the Longshan culture (ca. 5000 to 4000 years ago) in the middle and lower Yellow River areas built on these foundations, featuring black pottery, rammed-earth walls around elite enclosures, and larger proto-urban centers suggestive of emerging hierarchies.^[23] Sites like Taosi in Shanxi province yield jade artifacts, oracle bone precursors, and mass burials indicating ritual violence or social complexity, alongside advancements in bronze working precursors and intensified rice-millet mixed farming.^[24] These developments, including fortified settlements and possible early chiefdoms, reflect intensifying inter-group interactions and resource competition, setting the stage for the Bronze Age transitions that shaped the ancestral Huaxia populations.^[22] The archaeological sequence from Peiligang precursors through Yangshao to Longshan underscores a gradual consolidation of cultural practices in the Central Plains, with continuity in subsistence, technology, and settlement that persisted into historical Han formations.^[23]

Genetic evidence and ancestry

Genetic studies using genome-wide autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have revealed that Han Chinese exhibit a relatively homogeneous genetic profile compared to other large ethnic groups, with a pronounced north-south clinal variation in allele frequencies across over 6,000 samples from ten provinces.^[5] This cline reflects historical expansions from the Central Plains, where northern Han populations show greater affinity to ancient Yellow River basin farmers, while southern Han display increased admixture with pre-existing southern East Asian populations, including those akin to modern Austroasiatic and Tai-Kadai speakers.^[5] Principal component analysis positions Han Chinese tightly within East Asian clusters, distinct from neighboring groups like Koreans and Japanese, though northern Han overlap more closely with the latter.^[5] Paternal lineages among Han Chinese are dominated by Y-chromosome haplogroup O-M175, which accounts for 60-93% of males across regional samples, with subclades O2-M122 (associated with Sino-Tibetan expansions) comprising 30-50% in most populations.^[25]^[26] Northern Han show slightly higher frequencies of haplogroups like C-M217 (linked to ancient Siberian influences) at 5-10%, while southern groups exhibit elevated N-M231 (up to 5-7%), indicative of minor northern nomadic admixtures during historical migrations.^[27] Maternal mtDNA haplogroups are more diverse, featuring East Asian-specific lineages such as D, B, F, and A at frequencies of 10-30% each, underscoring continuity from Neolithic maternal pools but with regional variations mirroring the autosomal cline.^[5] Ancient DNA analyses confirm that the core genetic structure of northern Han was largely established by the late Neolithic period, around 3,000 years ago, deriving primarily from Yellow River agriculturalists of the Yangshao and Longshan cultures, who practiced millet farming and showed genetic continuity with modern northern Han in up to 80-90% of ancestry components.^[28] Southern Han formation involved substantial gene flow from these northern migrants into indigenous Yangtze River populations, with admixture proportions estimated at 50-70% northern-derived ancestry in modern southern samples, as evidenced by shared alleles in Bronze Age remains from central China.^[28] This pattern aligns with archaeological evidence of demographic expansions during the Qin-Han dynasties, where assimilation of non-Han groups contributed minor genetic inputs without fundamentally altering the predominant East Asian farmer ancestry.^[29] Regional substructure persists, with coastal northern Han (e.g., Liaoning) displaying genetic affinities to inland northern groups like those from Shandong and Henan, suggesting limited gene flow from Altaic speakers despite historical interactions.^[27] Overall, Han genetic homogeneity—despite spanning diverse environments—stems from serial founder effects during southward migrations and cultural practices favoring endogamy, as quantified by low Fst values (0.001-0.005) between distant subgroups.^[5] These findings counter narratives of recent large-scale admixture, emphasizing deep continuity from prehistoric East Asian sources.^[28]

Historical Development

Ancient formation and expansions

The precursors of the Han ethnic group were the Huaxia peoples, agricultural tribes concentrated in the Central Plains along the middle and lower Yellow River valley, who by the early first millennium BCE had coalesced into a culturally distinct confederation practicing millet farming, bronze metallurgy, and ancestral rituals.^[6] Archaeological evidence associates Huaxia formation with the transition from Longshan culture (c. 2500–1900 BCE), marked by fortified settlements and social stratification, to the Erlitou culture (c. 1900–1500 BCE), featuring proto-urban centers and early palatial structures that indicate emerging state-like organization.^[30] This foundational phase, spanning the late Neolithic to early Bronze Age, established core Huaxia traits including patrilineal kinship and oracle divination, as evidenced by Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BCE) artifacts.^[6] During the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE), Huaxia identity solidified through feudal hierarchies and philosophical texts contrasting civilized "Xia" with peripheral "Yi" and "Di" groups, promoting cultural endogamy and ritual orthodoxy amid interstate warfare.^[30] The Warring States period (475–221 BCE) accelerated ethnogenesis via iron tool diffusion, legalist governance experiments, and linguistic standardization precursors, integrating regional polities into a shared Sinitic cultural sphere despite political fragmentation. The Qin dynasty's conquest in 221 BCE under Qin Shi Huang imposed empire-wide uniformity in script, weights, measures, and conscript labor for walls and canals, effectively merging Huaxia elites and populations into a centralized polity that transcended prior tribal divisions.^[31] The Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE) marked the crystallization of Han identity, with the dynasty's name—derived from the Han River—eventually applied to the ethnic group as Huaxia descendants self-identified as "Hanren" in post-dynastic records.^[6] Expansions commenced with Qin's southern thrusts into Baiyue territories, but Han Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 BCE) decisively conquered the Nanyue kingdom in 111 BCE, annexing regions encompassing modern Guangdong, Guangxi, and parts of Vietnam, displacing or subjugating tattooed, rice-paddy-dwelling Yue tribes through garrison colonies and deportations.^[32] This initiated demographic shifts, as northern Han settlers numbering in the hundreds of thousands migrated southward, introducing plow agriculture, Han script, and bureaucratic oversight, which eroded indigenous matrilineal customs and languages via intermarriage and coercive assimilation.^[32] Northern campaigns against Xiongnu confederations from 133 BCE secured the Ordos loop and Hexi Corridor, enabling indirect expansions via tribute networks and Silk Road trade, though primary Han growth occurred southward, where genetic admixture with Baiyue descendants is evident in modern southern Han Y-chromosome and mtDNA profiles.^[33] By the Eastern Han (25–220 CE), these processes had extended Han cultural dominance over subtropical lowlands, transforming diverse Yue polities into sinicized commanderies, with administrative records documenting integrated populations under Confucian hierarchies.^[6] This era's territorial gains, from the Yangtze basin to Lingnan, laid the basis for Han numerical supremacy, driven by state-sponsored migration rather than mere conquest.

Imperial consolidation and dynasties

The Qin dynasty, established in 221 BCE by Ying Zheng (who proclaimed himself Qin Shi Huang), achieved the first unification of the Chinese heartland by conquering the remaining Warring States through relentless military campaigns, thereby consolidating disparate polities into a centralized empire spanning approximately 5.5 million square kilometers. This consolidation involved standardizing weights, measures, currency, axle widths for carts, and the written script, which facilitated administrative efficiency and cultural integration across regions previously divided by local variations.^[34] Infrastructure projects, including extensive road networks and early sections of the Great Wall, enhanced internal cohesion and defense, though the regime's Legalist policies—emphasizing strict laws, forced labor, and book burnings—incurred widespread resentment, culminating in rebellions that ended the dynasty in 206 BCE after only 15 years. Despite its brevity, Qin's imperial model of absolutist rule and bureaucratization provided the structural template for subsequent dynasties, laying groundwork for the ethnic and cultural framework that would define the Han as the core population of this unified realm.^[35] The Han dynasty, founded in 202 BCE by Liu Bang (posthumously Emperor Gaozu) following his victory over rival warlords, inherited and refined Qin's centralization while mitigating its excesses through a blend of Legalist administration and Confucian ethics, marking a pivotal era of stability that endured nearly four centuries until 220 CE. Early emperors like Gaozu devolved some power to feudal kings to secure loyalty but progressively centralized authority via appointed officials, establishing a merit-based bureaucracy that prioritized competence over nobility.^[36] Under Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 BCE), the state sponsored Confucianism as the orthodox ideology, integrating it into education and governance; this included creating imperial academies and precursor civil service examinations based on Confucian classics, which institutionalized moral hierarchy and loyalty to the emperor, fostering a shared cultural identity among the elite and populace. Territorial expansions southward into modern Vietnam and westward along the Silk Road routes incorporated diverse groups through sinicization policies, such as mandatory adoption of Han script and customs, while agricultural innovations like iron plows and crop rotation boosted population growth to around 60 million by 2 CE, solidifying the Han as the demographic majority in the empire's core. The dynasty's division into Western (206 BCE–9 CE) and Eastern (25–220 CE) phases reflected internal strife, including Wang Mang's brief Xin interregnum, but its legacy—encompassing technological advances like paper invention and seismographs—permanently embedded "Han" (derived from the Han River basin) as the ethnonym for the sinicized Chinese populace, distinguishing them from northern nomads.^[34] Following the Han's fragmentation into the Three Kingdoms and subsequent periods of division (220–589 CE), the Sui dynasty (581–618 CE) briefly reunified the realm under Emperor Wen, who bridged northern and southern elites through marriage alliances and canal projects linking the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, thereby restoring economic integration essential for Han cultural dominance.^[37] The ensuing Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), founded by Li Yuan, expanded the empire to its greatest extent—encompassing Central Asia and Korea—while maintaining Han bureaucratic norms amid cosmopolitan influences from Buddhism and Turkic elements; however, its reliance on hereditary aristocracy diluted pure meritocracy, contributing to the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763 CE) that halved the population and weakened central control.^[38] The Song dynasty (960–1279 CE) responded to these threats by reinvigorating Confucian examination systems, achieving unprecedented urbanization (with cities like Kaifeng housing over 1 million) and innovations in printing and gunpowder, which reinforced Han intellectual and technological primacy despite territorial losses to Jurchen and Mongol incursions.^[38] The Ming dynasty (1368–1644 CE), established by Zhu Yuanzhang after expelling the Mongol Yuan, represented a deliberate Han restoration, emphasizing native cultural purity through bans on Mongol customs, reconstruction of the Great Wall (adding over 5,000 km), and maritime voyages under Zheng He that projected Han influence without permanent colonization.^[37] This era's neo-Confucian orthodoxy and absolutist autocracy further entrenched Han identity as synonymous with imperial orthodoxy, assimilating border populations via settlement policies and administrative sinicization, even as the dynasty's fall to Manchu invaders in 1644 transitioned to the Qing—where Han officials comprised the bureaucracy's backbone, preserving core traditions.^[38] Across these dynasties, recurring patterns of unification, bureaucratic perpetuation, and cultural standardization—rooted in Han precedents—sustained the ethnic Han as the empire's gravitational center, with assimilation of non-Han groups reinforcing demographic and ideological cohesion amid cyclical invasions.

Modern transformations under nationalism and communism

In the late Qing dynasty, escalating foreign encroachments, including the defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, spurred Han Chinese reformers and revolutionaries to develop a racialized nationalism that portrayed the Manchu rulers as alien oppressors and advocated for Han restoration as the basis of national revival.^[39] This ideology, articulated by figures such as Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei, rejected Confucian universalism in favor of ethnic solidarity, framing China's weakness as stemming from Manchu dilution of Han vitality, and culminated in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Qing and established the Republic of China.^[40] Under the Republic (1912–1949), however, nationalism shifted toward a civic Zhonghua minzu framework promoted by Sun Yat-sen, nominally uniting Han with Mongols, Hui, Tibetans, and Manchus in a "five races under one republic" to foster territorial integrity, though Han demographic preponderance—over 90% of the population—and cultural hegemony ensured their de facto centrality.^[41] Movements like the New Culture campaign of the 1910s and 1920s further transformed Han identity by critiquing traditional Confucianism as feudal and advocating Western-inspired science, democracy, and vernacular language, eroding elite Han literati traditions in pursuit of modernization.^[39] The founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) initially subordinated ethnic Han identity to class-based proletarian internationalism, with Mao Zedong issuing directives in the 1950s against "Han chauvinism" to prevent dominance over minorities during the ethnic classification project that identified 55 minority groups alongside the Han majority, comprising approximately 93% of the population by 1964.^[42] Yet, CCP policies facilitated Han expansion through state-directed migration to minority regions, such as Xinjiang and Tibet, where Han settlers grew from under 7% to over 40% of Xinjiang's population by the 2000s, promoting de facto assimilation via Mandarin education, intermarriage incentives, and infrastructure development that embedded Han norms.^[43] The Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) and subsequent famines, which killed an estimated 15–45 million primarily in Han rural areas due to collectivization failures, reshaped Han social structures by decimating family clans and traditional agrarian customs, enforcing communal living over lineage-based identities.^[44] The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) represented the most radical rupture, as Mao mobilized Red Guards—mostly urban Han youth—to eradicate the "Four Olds" (old ideas, culture, customs, habits), targeting Han-centric Confucian heritage through the destruction of over 6,000 temples, libraries, and artifacts, alongside the persecution of 36 million people, including intellectuals and elders who embodied traditional Han values.^[44] This campaign, intended to forge a revolutionary socialist consciousness, suppressed Han festivals, filial piety, and ancestral rites, replacing them with Maoist cultism and class struggle rhetoric, though rural Han communities preserved some folk practices covertly amid the chaos that claimed 1–2 million lives.^[45] Post-1978 economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping revived Han entrepreneurial traditions and urbanization, with over 600 million rural Han migrating to cities by 2020, diluting regional dialects and clan ties while amplifying Han cultural export via media and commerce, even as the one-child policy (1979–2015), applied rigorously to Han families, reduced fertility rates to 1.18 by 2010 and exacerbated gender imbalances through sex-selective abortions favoring males.^[46] Under Xi Jinping since 2012, CCP ethnic policy has intensified toward a unified "Chinese national" identity, mandating Sinicization measures like bilingual education prioritizing Mandarin and the 2018 revisions to religious regulations that align practices with "socialist core values," effectively extending Han cultural dominance while quelling overt Han ethnonationalism through censorship of online groups advocating racial purity.^[43]^[47] This era has seen partial rehabilitation of Han traditions, such as Confucian institutes promoting "harmonious society" rhetoric, but subordinated to party loyalty, with state media emphasizing Han historical contributions to justify territorial claims, reflecting a pragmatic fusion of ethnic pride with authoritarian control amid rising domestic Han grievances over perceived minority privileges in affirmative action quotas.^[46]

Demographics and Distribution

Population size and subgroups

The Han Chinese constitute the world's largest ethnic group, numbering approximately 1.286 billion individuals as of China's 2020 national census, representing 91.11% of the country's total population of 1.412 billion.^[1] This figure accounts for those officially classified as Han within mainland China, excluding significant diaspora communities in Taiwan (over 23 million ethnic Han), Hong Kong, Macau, and overseas populations estimated at tens of millions, which collectively push global Han numbers beyond 1.3 billion.^[1] China's overall population has since declined slightly, reaching about 1.409 billion by 2023 amid low birth rates, though the Han proportion remains stable near 91%.^[48] Within the Han classification, regional subgroups are primarily delineated by Sinitic dialect groups, which reflect historical migrations, geographic isolation, and cultural variations rather than distinct ethnic boundaries under official Chinese policy.^[49] The largest subgroup comprises Mandarin speakers, predominant in northern and central China, encompassing over two-thirds of the Han population and serving as the basis for Standard Chinese.^[49] Other major subgroups include Wu speakers (e.g., Shanghainese, from Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces), Yue speakers (Cantonese, mainly in Guangdong and Hong Kong), Min speakers (e.g., Hokkien and Teochew, from Fujian and coastal areas), Hakka (scattered migrant communities with distinct traditions), Gan (Jiangxi region), and Xiang (Hunan).^[49] These subgroups maintain internal endogamy and localized customs to varying degrees, contributing to genetic and cultural substructure observable in studies of Han populations, though intermarriage and urbanization have increased homogenization.^[5] Official census data does not enumerate these dialect-based subgroups separately, treating them uniformly as Han to emphasize national unity, a policy rooted in mid-20th-century ethnic consolidation efforts.^[1]

Geographic spread and migration patterns

The Han Chinese are primarily distributed within the People's Republic of China, where they accounted for 1,286.31 million individuals or 91.11% of the total population according to the 2020 national census conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics.^[1] Population densities are highest in the eastern and central regions, with Han comprising over 98% in provinces like Jiangsu, Anhui, and Shandong, reflecting historical settlement cores along the Yellow and Yangtze River basins. In Taiwan, Han Chinese constitute more than 95% of the approximately 23.4 million residents, descending largely from migrations during the Ming and Qing dynasties.^[50]^[17] Overseas, Han Chinese form the core of the global Chinese diaspora, estimated at 40-50 million individuals as of recent assessments, with the largest concentrations in Southeast Asia due to 19th- and 20th-century labor migrations.^[51] Indonesia hosts over 7 million, Thailand around 9 million, Malaysia about 7 million, and Singapore roughly 3 million, where they often maintain distinct cultural enclaves amid host societies.^[52] Smaller communities, numbering in the millions, have emerged in the United States (about 5 million ethnic Chinese), Canada, Australia, and Europe, driven by post-1980s economic opportunities and education-seeking.^[53] Historically, Han migration originated from the Central Plains of northern China, with gradual southward expansion beginning during the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–9 CE) through military conquests and agricultural colonization of the Yangtze River valley and beyond, displacing or assimilating Baiyue indigenous groups.^[54] This pattern intensified with three major waves of mass southward relocation in the 4th–6th, 12th, and 19th centuries, triggered by northern nomadic invasions that pushed populations into southern frontiers, as evidenced by genetic north-south clines and historical records.^[55]^[5] Frontier expansions included over 30 million Han settlers to Northeast China from provinces like Shandong and Hebei between 1860 and 1949, and state-sponsored movements to Xinjiang and Tibet post-1949, often tied to resource development and border security.^[27] To Taiwan, systematic Han influx began in the 17th century under Qing rule, transforming it from indigenous-dominated to Han-majority by the early 20th century.^[56] In the modern era, internal migration has been dominated by Han rural-to-urban flows since China's 1978 economic reforms, with over 290 million migrant workers—predominantly Han from central and western provinces—relocating to coastal manufacturing hubs like Guangdong and Zhejiang by 2020, fueled by industrialization and relaxed hukou restrictions.^[57] Overseas emigration shifted from 19th-century coolie labor to Southeast Asian plantations and mines to post-Mao skilled and investment-driven outflows, with annual departures exceeding 500,000 by the 2010s, targeting high-income destinations for education and business.^[58] These patterns have reinforced Han demographic dominance in urban China while sustaining global networks, though they have sparked tensions in frontier regions like Xinjiang due to perceived cultural imposition.^[59]

Language and Linguistics

Sinitic language family

The Sinitic languages constitute the primary linguistic branch associated with the Han Chinese ethnic group, forming a major subgroup within the Sino-Tibetan family and encompassing varieties historically derived from a common ancestral form spoken in northern China.^[60] These languages are spoken natively by approximately 1.1 billion people, the largest cohesive speech community globally, with the vast majority being Han Chinese in mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and overseas diasporas.^[61] Their development traces back to Old Chinese, attested in oracle bone inscriptions from the late Shang dynasty around 1250 BCE, which reflect an early analytic structure with tones emerging as a distinguishing feature by the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE).^[62] Internal classification divides Sinitic into seven to ten principal branches, based on phonological, lexical, and grammatical divergences accumulated over millennia of regional divergence following migrations and substrate influences from non-Sinitic languages in southern China.^[63] The dominant branch, Mandarin (or Northern), accounts for over 70% of speakers with around 850–900 million native users centered in the north and southwest, featuring simplified tones and vocabulary shaped by imperial standardization efforts from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 CE) onward.^[60] Other key branches include Wu (e.g., Shanghainese, ~80 million speakers in the Yangtze delta), Yue (Cantonese, ~80 million in Guangdong and Hong Kong), Min (e.g., Hokkien and Teochew, ~75 million along the southeast coast), Xiang (Hunan region), Gan (Jiangxi), and Hakka (scattered southern enclaves).^[60] These branches exhibit mutual unintelligibility in speech due to distinct tone systems—ranging from 5–9 tones—and vocabulary retention from Middle Chinese (c. 600–1000 CE), yet maintain partial intelligibility in writing via shared logographic characters adapted from classical forms.^[62] For Han Chinese, Sinitic languages underpin ethnic cohesion despite dialectal fragmentation, as the adoption of vernacular Mandarin as Pǔtōnghuà (standard speech) since the 1950s has facilitated national communication without eradicating regional varieties, which persist in family, commerce, and cultural transmission among Han subgroups.^[60] This linguistic unity, reinforced by a millennium of literary Chinese as a supra-dialectal medium, contrasts with the assimilation of non-Sinitic substrates during Han expansions southward, where Austroasiatic and Tai-Kadai influences subtly shaped southern branches like Min and Yue.^[63] Grammatically, Sinitic varieties are isolating and analytic, relying on word order (subject-verb-object) and particles for syntax rather than inflection, with tones serving lexical differentiation—a trait inherited from Proto-Sino-Tibetan but amplified in Sinitic evolution.^[60] Ongoing research highlights conservative retentions in oracle bones, such as monosyllabic roots and initial consonant clusters lost in modern forms, underscoring a continuous lineage from prehistoric northern origins tied to early Han cultural hearths.^[62]

Dialects, standardization, and writing systems

The Sinitic languages spoken by Han Chinese constitute a branch of the Sino-Tibetan family, characterized by significant regional variation that renders major dialect groups mutually unintelligible in spoken form, as demonstrated by functional testing of word and sentence comprehension across varieties. Empirical studies, including lexical and syntactic similarity measures, confirm low intelligibility rates—often below 20-30%—between non-adjacent groups like Mandarin and Min or Yue, supporting their classification as distinct languages rather than dialects of a single tongue. The primary groups include Mandarin (covering northern and southwestern China, with over 800 million speakers), Wu (e.g., Shanghainese, in the Yangtze Delta), Yue (Cantonese, prevalent in Guangdong and Hong Kong), Min (subdivided into Southern Min like Hokkien and Northern varieties, in Fujian and Taiwan), Xiang (Hunan region), Gan (Jiangxi), Hakka (scattered southern enclaves), and smaller clusters like Jin and Huizhou. These divergences arose from historical sound changes, migrations, and substrate influences following the Han expansions, with isolation in southern riverine and mountainous terrains preserving archaic features in non-Mandarin branches.^[64]^[65] Standardization of the spoken language emerged as a modern priority under the People's Republic of China (PRC), with Putonghua—based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin—promulgated as the national standard in 1955 by the Committee for the Reform of the Chinese Written Language. This followed Republican-era efforts in the 1910s-1930s to codify a guoyu (national language) from northern speech for education and administration, but full implementation accelerated post-1949 via the 1956 State Council directive mandating its use in schools, media, and government, aiming to unify communication amid dialectal fragmentation. By 2020, surveys indicated over 70% of PRC residents could speak Putonghua proficiently, driven by compulsory schooling and urban migration, though enforcement varies regionally and resistance persists in southern strongholds like Guangdong where Yue remains dominant in daily life. Taiwan employs a similar standard, Zhuyin-assisted Mandarin, while Hong Kong and Macau prioritize Cantonese alongside English, reflecting colonial legacies over PRC influence. Pinyin romanization, adopted in 1958, facilitates phonetic teaching and global transliteration but does not supplant characters.^[66]^[67] The writing system, hanzi (Chinese characters), provides a unifying medium across dialects, as its logographic nature encodes morphemes rather than phonemes, enabling comprehension of written text regardless of spoken variation—a feature rooted in its evolution from Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscriptions around 1200 BCE. Comprising over 50,000 historical forms but standardized to about 2,100-3,000 for modern literacy, hanzi evolved through scripts like seal (Qin era, 221 BCE) and clerical (Han Dynasty), with phonetic-semantic compounds forming 80-90% of characters. The PRC introduced simplified variants in 1956 to boost literacy rates, reducing stroke counts (e.g., 愛 to 爱), which now cover 97% of usage there; traditional forms persist in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas communities for cultural continuity. This orthographic unity, contrasted with alphabetic systems, has sustained elite literacy historically but poses challenges for dialect speakers learning standardized pronunciation.^[68]^[69]

Culture and Traditions

Philosophy, ethics, and Confucianism

Confucius (551–479 BCE), the foundational figure of Confucianism, developed his teachings during China's Spring and Autumn period, emphasizing moral self-cultivation and harmonious social relations as essential to human flourishing.^[70] His philosophy prioritizes virtues such as ren (benevolence or humaneness), which involves empathy and altruism rooted in familial bonds, and li (ritual propriety), which structures interpersonal conduct through established norms and ceremonies to prevent disorder.^[70] These principles extend to the "five constant virtues"—ren, yi (righteousness), li, zhi (wisdom), and xin (trustworthiness)—intended to guide individuals in roles like ruler-subject, parent-child, and husband-wife, fostering reciprocal duties that underpin societal stability.^[71] For Han Chinese, these ethics manifest in practices prioritizing collective harmony over individualism, with empirical evidence from historical records showing their integration into daily governance and family life. The Analects, a compilation of Confucius's sayings recorded by disciples after his death, serves as the core text articulating these ideas, advocating education and moral example as paths to ethical leadership rather than coercion.^[72] Key to Confucian ethics is xiao (filial piety), the duty to honor parents and ancestors, which Confucius viewed as the root of ren and a foundation for broader righteousness (yi), as unfilial behavior undermines social trust and hierarchy.^[70] This emphasis on hierarchy and duty reflects causal reasoning: proper roles ensure predictable interactions, reducing conflict, as seen in Confucian critiques of Legalist authoritarianism that ignore moral cultivation. In Han culture, xiao reinforced patrilineal clans, with rituals like ancestor veneration empirically linked to social cohesion in agrarian communities, where failure to observe them correlated with familial disputes documented in Han-era legal texts. Confucianism's elevation to state ideology occurred during the Han dynasty under Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 BCE), who in 136 BCE adopted scholar Dong Zhongshu's recommendations to synthesize it with cosmology, dismissing rival schools like Legalism to unify imperial administration.^[71]^[73] This policy institutionalized Confucian ethics in the civil service examinations, initiated around 165 BCE, selecting officials based on mastery of classics, which by 100 CE had produced over 10,000 graduates annually and entrenched meritocratic yet hierarchical governance.^[74] For the Han ethnic group, whose identity coalesced during this dynasty, Confucianism provided a realist framework for ethics, prioritizing empirical virtues like diligence and loyalty over abstract ideals, influencing everything from bureaucratic efficiency—evidenced by Han expansion to 6 million square kilometers under Confucian-advised policies—to enduring norms against rebellion through moral suasion. Its resilience persisted through dynastic cycles, adapting to challenges like Buddhism's rise while maintaining core tenets of duty and order.^[75]

Arts, literature, and material culture

Han Chinese literature encompasses a vast corpus spanning over two millennia, rooted in classical texts that emphasize moral philosophy, history, and poetry. Foundational works include the Analects attributed to Confucius (c. 551–479 BCE), which compile sayings on ethics and governance, and the Mencius by Mencius (c. 372–289 BCE), expanding on Confucian ideals of benevolence and righteous rule.^[76] The Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), completed by Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BCE), stands as a seminal historical text with 130 chapters chronicling events from mythical antiquity through the early Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), blending annals, treatises, and biographies.^[77] Later developments feature Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) poetry, anthologized in collections like Stephen Owen's An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911, which highlight lyrical expressions of nature and human emotion by poets such as Li Bai and Du Fu.^[78] Visual arts in Han culture prioritize calligraphy (shufa) and ink painting, regarded as interconnected pursuits originating from shared principles of brushwork and line. Calligraphy, elevated as a fine art prior to painting's prominence, evolved through dynastic styles emphasizing rhythm and expression, with painting aligning closely to calligraphic techniques by the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE).^[79] These forms, practiced on silk or paper, often depict landscapes, figures, and flora in monochrome inks, reflecting philosophical harmony with nature. Traditional opera, including regional variants synthesized into Peking opera by the 19th century, integrates stylized recitation, martial arts, and elaborate costumes, tracing origins to earlier theatrical traditions like those in the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368 CE).^[80] Material culture highlights artisanal mastery in ceramics, textiles, and jade. Proto-porcelain emerged around 1000 BCE during the Shang and Zhou periods, with hard-paste porcelain developing by circa 200 CE, enabling durable, translucent wares traded via the Silk Roads.^[81] Silk weaving, evidenced from Neolithic sites, produced fine fabrics central to clothing, trade, and decorative arts, fostering techniques like brocade and embroidery. Jade carving, with ritual objects appearing by the late Neolithic (c. 2000 BCE), symbolized purity and status, yielding intricate ceremonial blades and bi discs in Shang (c. 1600–1046 BCE) and Zhou (1046–256 BCE) eras for funerary and ancestral rites.^[82]

Cuisine, festivals, and daily customs

Han Chinese cuisine features regional diversity shaped by geography and climate, with rice as the primary staple in southern areas and wheat-based foods like noodles, steamed buns (mantou), and dumplings in the north.^[83] Tofu, derived from soybeans, serves as a key protein source alongside vegetables such as cabbage, scallions, and ginger, reflecting a tradition of plant-heavy diets dating back over two millennia to the Qin Dynasty.^[84] ^[85] Signature dishes include stir-fried vegetables with meat (fan-cai principle of staple plus accompaniments), regional specialties like spicy Sichuan hotpot or Cantonese dim sum, and fermented products such as soy sauce and pickled vegetables for flavor enhancement.^[86] Major festivals among the Han include the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), observed from the last day of the lunar year with family reunions, fireworks, and consumption of symbolic foods like dumplings representing wealth.^[87] The Mid-Autumn Festival, held on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, involves moon-gazing, lanterns, and mooncakes filled with lotus seed paste or salted egg yolk to symbolize reunion and harvest abundance.^[87] Other observances encompass the Dragon Boat Festival (fifth day of the fifth lunar month), featuring rice dumplings (zongzi) and boat races commemorating poet Qu Yuan, and Qingming Festival (around April 4-6 Gregorian), dedicated to tomb-sweeping and offerings for ancestors.^[87] These events emphasize familial bonds and seasonal cycles, with customs like avoiding sweeping floors during Spring Festival to prevent sweeping away good fortune.^[88] Daily customs prioritize social harmony and hierarchy, including communal family meals where elders are served first and dishes are shared from a central table to foster equality in consumption.^[89] Tea drinking, often green or oolong varieties, accompanies social interactions and meals, symbolizing hospitality and mindfulness, with rituals like pouring for others before oneself.^[90] Greetings involve slight bows or handshakes with verbal respect (e.g., using familial titles), and practices such as removing shoes upon entering homes maintain cleanliness and comfort.^[89] Ancestor veneration through household altars with incense and offerings reinforces filial piety, integrated into routines like morning rituals.^[91]

Society and Economy

The traditional Han Chinese family structure was patriarchal and extended, with multiple generations living together under the authority of the eldest male, influenced by Confucian principles emphasizing hierarchy and harmony. In this system, the father held primary decision-making power, followed by the mother, eldest son, and other descendants, with roles divided by gender: men focused on external affairs like education and work, while women managed domestic duties and child-rearing.^[92]^[93] Filial piety (xiao), a core Confucian virtue requiring children to respect, obey, and support parents, shaped social norms, including arranged marriages to strengthen family alliances and inheritance through male lines, often prioritizing sons for continuity of the lineage. Women were expected to embody virtues like chastity and subservience, with limited public roles, though historical records show occasional elite women exerting influence through family networks.^[92]^[94] Post-1949 communist policies and rapid urbanization have shifted Han families toward nuclear structures, particularly in cities, where by 2010 over 60% of urban households consisted of parents and one child due to the one-child policy enforced from 1979 to 2015, which restricted most Han urban families to a single offspring. This policy, aimed at population control, reduced average family sizes from 4.4 members in 1982 to 2.6 by 2020, fostering "4-2-1" structures (four grandparents, two parents, one child) that intensified intergenerational support burdens amid declining birth rates.^[95]^[96] Contemporary norms retain filial piety as a cultural expectation, with surveys indicating 70-80% of young Han adults in mainland China affirming obligations to care for aging parents emotionally and financially, though economic migration and individualism erode co-residence, dropping from 70% in the 1980s to under 40% by 2020. Gender roles have evolved with women's increased labor participation—reaching 60% of the urban workforce by 2010—but traditional expectations persist, contributing to marriage delays and low fertility rates below 1.3 births per woman as of 2023.^[97]^[98]

Economic achievements and innovations

The Han Chinese developed key agricultural innovations during the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), including the moldboard plow, which enhanced soil turnover and crop yields in intensive rice and millet farming, supporting population growth to over 50 million by the dynasty's end.^[99] Cast iron production via blast furnaces, refined in this period, enabled durable tools and weapons, boosting productivity in farming and metallurgy; by the Eastern Han, annual iron output reached tens of thousands of tons.^[99] The wheelbarrow, invented around 100 CE, reduced labor costs in construction and transport, facilitating large-scale infrastructure like canals and roads that integrated markets across the empire.^[100] Advancements in resource extraction and trade further underpinned economic expansion. Deep drilling techniques, achieving depths over 100 meters using bamboo cables and iron bits, accessed salt and natural gas deposits, yielding brine for state monopolies that generated significant revenue—estimated at one-third of imperial income by the Western Han.^[99] The invention of paper by Cai Lun in 105 CE revolutionized record-keeping, enabling efficient bureaucracy, taxation, and commerce documentation, while suspension bridges and improved road networks expanded the Silk Road trade, exporting silk, lacquerware, and iron goods to Central Asia and Rome.^[99] In the modern era, Han Chinese, comprising over 91% of China's population, have driven the country's transformation from agrarian poverty to industrial powerhouse following Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reforms. Annual GDP growth averaged over 9% from 1978 to 2020, elevating China to the world's second-largest economy with a nominal GDP exceeding $17 trillion by 2023, fueled by export-led manufacturing in electronics, textiles, and machinery.^[101] This period saw the largest poverty reduction in history, lifting approximately 800 million people above the extreme poverty line (under $1.90/day PPP) through rural decollectivization, special economic zones, and foreign investment attraction, reducing rural poverty incidence from 97% in 1978 to under 1% by 2019.^[101] Infrastructure feats, such as over 40,000 km of high-speed rail by 2023, reflect engineering prowess in scaling civil works, though often state-orchestrated rather than purely private innovation.^[102] Contemporary Han-led innovations emphasize applied engineering in high-volume sectors. China dominates global production of solar panels (over 80% market share) and electric vehicles, with firms like BYD achieving battery breakthroughs enabling affordable mass-market EVs, supported by state subsidies and supply chain integration.^[101] Han Chinese diaspora communities, numbering tens of millions, have similarly propelled economic dynamism in Southeast Asia, controlling significant shares of commerce in countries like Thailand (up to 10% of GDP via ethnic Chinese networks) through mercantile traditions tracing to imperial trade eras.^[103] These outcomes stem from cultural emphases on diligence, education, and adaptive entrepreneurship, though reliant on institutional reforms and global markets rather than isolated genius. China's Han-dominated society faces acute demographic pressures from a fertility rate of approximately 1.0 births per woman in 2023, far below the replacement level of 2.1, exacerbated by the legacy of the one-child policy (1979–2015) and ongoing socioeconomic factors such as high child-rearing costs and urban housing pressures. ^[104] This has led to a population decline, with projections estimating a drop to 1.26 billion by 2050 and a labor force contraction of 28% from its peak by mid-century.^[105] ^[106] The aging population compounds the issue, with 310 million individuals aged 60 or older as of early 2025, representing 22% of the total, straining pension systems and healthcare resources amid a shrinking workforce.^[107] Interlinked with low fertility is a marriage crisis, with only 6.1 million couples registering marriages in 2024—a 20.5% plunge from the prior year and the lowest in nearly four decades—driven by economic uncertainty, gender imbalances, and shifting priorities toward career and personal fulfillment among young adults.^[108] ^[109] The one-child policy's preference for male heirs created a persistent sex ratio skew, with 3–4% more males than females in affected cohorts, leaving millions of men unable to find partners and fueling social instability in rural areas.^[110] Youth unemployment, hovering at 14–20% for ages 16–24 in 2025, further delays family formation, as over 12 million annual graduates confront mismatched skills, deflationary pressures, and a sluggish job market, prompting phenomena like "lying flat" disengagement.^[111] ^[112] The hukou household registration system perpetuates an urban-rural divide, denying rural Han migrants full access to city-based education, healthcare, and welfare, which restricts social mobility and exacerbates inequality for an estimated 300 million internal migrants.^[113] ^[114] This structural barrier contributes to family separations, with children often left in rural areas ("left-behind children") facing educational and psychological disadvantages. Compounding these is the pervasive 996 work culture in tech and other sectors—entailing 72-hour weeks—which correlates with elevated rates of insomnia, depressive symptoms, and overwork-related deaths, particularly among young urban professionals, undermining work-life balance and fertility incentives.^[115] ^[116] Government efforts to relax hukou rules and promote pro-natal policies have yielded limited results, as underlying causal factors like economic insecurity and cultural shifts toward individualism persist.^[117] ^[118]

Religion and Worldview

Folk beliefs and ancestor worship

Han Chinese folk beliefs encompass a syncretic array of practices rooted in animism, shamanism, and veneration of local deities, often integrated with Confucian filial piety and Taoist cosmology. These beliefs emphasize harmony with natural and supernatural forces, including geomancy (feng shui) for site selection and divination methods like the I Ching to predict outcomes.^[119] Popular deities include the Jade Emperor as ruler of heaven, door guardians (menshen) to ward off evil spirits, and the Kitchen God (Zao Jun), whose annual report to heaven influences household fortune.^[120] Superstitions persist, such as avoiding the number four due to its phonetic similarity to "death" and favoring red for protection against malevolent forces.^[121] Ancestor worship forms the cornerstone of these folk practices, involving rituals to honor deceased kin believed to possess ongoing influence over family prosperity and moral order. Originating in the Neolithic era around 7000 BCE with oracle bone inscriptions evidencing early veneration, it persisted as the most enduring religious element through imperial dynasties.^[122] Core rituals divide into mortuary rites (sangli), which prepare the body and soul for the afterlife through burial and mourning periods lasting up to three years, and sacrificial rites (jili), featuring offerings of food, incense, and paper goods on altars or graves during festivals like Qingming (April 4-6) or Zhongyuan (seventh lunar month).^[123] These acts reinforce patrilineal descent, with sons performing primary duties to sustain ancestral spirits (gui), averting misfortune if neglected.^[124] In rural and diaspora communities, ancestor worship correlates with higher fertility rates and son preference, as evidenced by 2018 demographic surveys showing practitioners averaging 0.2 more sons per family than non-practitioners.^[125] Empirical studies indicate over 70% of Han Chinese engage in these rituals annually, blending them with folk elements like burning joss paper for ghostly needs, despite official secularism under the People's Republic.^[126] This veneration underscores causal beliefs in reciprocal duties between living descendants and ancestral shades, fostering social cohesion without formalized priesthood.^[127]

Integration of Buddhism, Taoism, and other influences

Buddhism entered China during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE), with the earliest recorded practice attributed to Liu Ying, a half-brother of Emperor Ming, around 65 CE, who sponsored Buddhist clergy and rituals blending native and foreign elements.^[128] Initial translations rendered Buddhist concepts like dharma in Daoist terms such as dao, facilitating early adaptation among Han elites amid the dynasty's cosmopolitan trade via the Silk Road.^[129] By the late Han period, Buddhist communities grew in urban centers like Luoyang, though integration remained limited until post-Han fragmentation, when it offered solace amid chaos, influencing Han cosmology through ideas of karma and rebirth reinterpreted via indigenous ancestor veneration.^[130] Taoism, evolving from philosophical roots in texts like the Daodejing and Zhuangzi (Warring States period, ca. 4th–3rd centuries BCE), formalized as Daojia during the Western Han (206 BCE–9 CE) under Sima Tan's classification, emphasizing wu wei (non-action) as complementary to Confucian governance.^[130] Religious Taoism emerged with the Celestial Masters sect around 142 CE, founded by Zhang Daoling following revelations from Laozi, establishing organized rituals, alchemy, and theurgy that appealed to Han commoners seeking longevity and divine intervention during dynastic decline.^[130] This form integrated Confucian ethics, such as filial piety, into talismanic practices, creating a practical ethic for Han daily life that contrasted yet harmonized with state orthodoxy.^[130] The concept of sanjiao (three teachings)—Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism—first appeared in the 6th century CE, as noted by scholar Li Shizhi, who analogized their coexistence to celestial harmony, though full syncretism (sanjiao heyi) solidified in the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE) amid Neo-Confucian efforts to synthesize them.^[131] Early interactions included Daoist critiques of Buddhism as foreign, prompting adaptations like the Lingbao scriptures (ca. 400 CE), which borrowed Buddhist sutra structures for native eschatology, while Chan (Zen) Buddhism absorbed Taoist naturalism, evident in Tang-era (618–907 CE) texts portraying Laozi as a Buddha incarnation.^[130] For Han Chinese, this yielded a pragmatic worldview: Confucian rites for social order, Taoist elixirs and immortals for personal cultivation, and Buddhist meditation for transcendence, often practiced interchangeably in folk temples without doctrinal exclusivity.^[131] Other influences, such as Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism via Silk Road traders in the Tang era, left marginal imprints on Han esotericism, like fire rituals echoing Taoist alchemy, but paled against the dominant triad's mutual reinforcement.^[130] By the Ming dynasty (1368–1644 CE), sanjiao heyi manifested in joint worship sites and morality books (shanshu) promoting ethical synthesis, embedding these elements into Han identity as adaptive tools for navigating imperial bureaucracy, natural disasters, and existential concerns.^[130] This integration prioritized empirical utility—e.g., Taoist herbalism validated by observable efficacy—over rigid orthodoxy, fostering resilience in Han cultural continuity.^[131]

Secularization under modern regimes

Under the People's Republic of China (PRC), founded in 1949, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has promoted state atheism as its core ideology, mandating that its approximately 98 million members abstain from any religious affiliation or practice. This policy stems from Marxist-Leninist principles viewing religion as an opiate of the masses, leading to systematic efforts to diminish religious influence among the Han majority, who constitute over 90% of the population. Early campaigns in the 1950s nationalized religious properties, confiscating thousands of temples, churches, and mosques for secular purposes such as schools and factories, while reorganizing surviving institutions under state-supervised patriotic associations.^[132]^[133] The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) intensified secularization through violent suppression, destroying an estimated 90% of China's cultural heritage sites, including religious ones, and persecuting clergy and believers as counter-revolutionaries; Red Guards targeted Han folk practices like ancestor worship alongside organized faiths, enforcing ideological purity via mass campaigns. Post-1978 reforms under Deng Xiaoping allowed limited religious revival, but under Xi Jinping since 2012, renewed "Sinicization" policies require religions to adapt doctrines and customs to "Chinese socialism," with demolitions of unregistered sites and surveillance of adherents continuing to prioritize secular governance. Despite these measures, surveys indicate incomplete secularization: a 2023 Pew analysis found only 33% of Chinese adults self-identify as atheists, though over 50% report no formal religious affiliation, reflecting persistent syncretic Han folk beliefs often classified as cultural rather than religious by the state.^[134]^[135] In the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, where Han comprise about 97% of the population, secularization has proceeded through constitutional separation of religion and state since 1947, without enforced atheism or property seizures on the mainland scale. The ROC government recognizes no state religion, permitting freedom of belief while regulating groups for public order; this framework, influenced by earlier Republican-era reforms like the 1912 temple confiscations for education, has fostered higher ritual participation—Buddhism and Taoism claim 35% affiliation per 2020 estimates—yet public policy remains neutral, with no ideological ban on personal faith. Han Taiwanese exhibit pragmatic secularity, blending folk customs with modern governance, contrasting PRC coercion but aligning with broader East Asian trends of religion as private rather than institutional.^[136]^[137]

Politics and Ethnic Relations

Han identity in Chinese governance

In the People's Republic of China (PRC), Han Chinese form the demographic and cultural foundation of governance, comprising 91.11% of the population as recorded in the Seventh National Population Census conducted in 2020.^[1] The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which exercises exclusive control over state institutions, draws its leadership almost entirely from Han ranks, reflecting a structural alignment with Han identity as the presumed national norm. For example, party secretaries in the five autonomous regions—Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Ningxia, Tibet, and Xinjiang—are uniformly Han Chinese, ensuring centralized oversight despite nominal minority autonomy, as documented in analyses of CCP cadre deployment up to the mid-2010s.^[138] This dominance extends to the apex of power: the Politburo Standing Committee has consisted solely of Han members since the CCP's founding in 1921, with ethnic minorities holding at most token representation in broader Politburo bodies, such as one Hui member out of 25 in the 17th Politburo (2007–2012).^[138] Under Xi Jinping's leadership since 2012, CCP policies have increasingly emphasized forging a "strong sense of community for the Chinese nation" (zhonghua minzu gongtongti yishi), a framework that positions Han cultural elements—such as Mandarin language proficiency, Confucian values, and standardized historical narratives—as the integrative core for all citizens.^[139] ^[140] This approach marks a departure from earlier CCP efforts to curb "Han chauvinism," a term Mao Zedong used in 1953 to denounce perceived ethnic dominance by Han cadres over minorities. Instead, recent directives promote Sinicization, requiring alignment of minority customs, education, and religious practices with Han-dominated norms, as seen in the 2018 guidelines for religious affairs and the 2021 revisions to Xinjiang governance emphasizing cultural assimilation.^[141] In practice, this has involved mandating Han-language instruction in minority schools and remodeling religious sites to incorporate socialist aesthetics, policies justified as enhancing national unity but resulting in the erosion of distinct ethnic identities.^[139] ^[142] While the PRC constitution affirms ethnic equality and regional autonomy for 55 recognized minorities, governance mechanisms prioritize Han-led stability, with preferential policies for minorities—such as relaxed family planning rules or university admission quotas—facing scrutiny amid rising Han grievances over perceived reverse discrimination.^[46] A 2023 draft "ethnic unity" law further codifies prohibitions on actions deemed to undermine unity, broadening state authority to enforce Han-centric cohesion.^[143] This evolution reflects causal pressures from territorial integrity concerns in minority-heavy border regions, where Han migration and administrative control have increased since the 1950s, alongside a nationalist resurgence that views Han identity as synonymous with Chinese state legitimacy.^[47] Empirical data from cadre statistics indicate that ethnic minorities constitute only about 10.8% of Central Committee seats as of 2007, underscoring persistent underrepresentation despite recruitment drives.^[138] Critics, including think tank analyses, argue this setup perpetuates de facto Han privilege, subordinating minority agency to CCP objectives framed through a Han lens.^[46] ^[142]

Relations with ethnic minorities

The People's Republic of China officially pursues a policy of regional ethnic autonomy, established under the 1984 Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law and enshrined in the constitution, which grants autonomous regions, prefectures, and counties to 55 designated ethnic minority groups while emphasizing unity under the Chinese Communist Party's leadership. This framework mandates that Han Chinese and minorities participate equally in governance, with autonomous organs required to prioritize minority interests in legislation and administration, though ultimate authority rests with central directives. Preferential policies for minorities include exemptions from the one-child policy (extended until recent national reforms), affirmative action in education and employment, and subsidies for development in autonomous areas.^[144]^[145]^[146] Han migration into minority-dominated regions has significantly altered demographics, often framed by the government as aiding economic integration but criticized for diluting indigenous majorities. In Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Han population rose from approximately 6% in 1949 to 40.6% by 2000, driven by state-sponsored settlement; between 2010 and 2020, Han numbers increased by 2.174 million, including 1.948 million interprovincial migrants, outpacing Uyghur growth rates of 16% over the decade compared to 25% for Han. Similarly, in the Tibet Autonomous Region, the Han share climbed to 12% by the 2020 census, concentrated in urban centers like Lhasa, amid overall population growth from infrastructure and resource development projects. These shifts correlate with improved infrastructure and GDP growth in autonomous regions but have heightened perceptions of cultural assimilation.^[147]^[148]^[149] Empirical studies reveal persistent socioeconomic disparities and interethnic frictions, with ethnic minorities facing wage penalties of 4-7% relative to Han workers in mixed areas like Shaanxi, even after controlling for productivity, which shows no inherent gap. Nationwide surveys indicate minorities report higher economic grievances and discrimination, contributing to uneven development where ethnic divisions reduce local investment and growth by measurable margins. Incidents of unrest, such as the 2009 Urumqi riots involving Han-Uyghur clashes that killed 197, underscore tensions exacerbated by rapid Han influx and cultural policies promoting Mandarin education and intermarriage. Government responses emphasize "ethnic fusion" for long-term unity, yet data from 2008-2020 highlights slower minority integration in urban Han-majority settings.^[150]^[151]^[152]

Nationalism, controversies, and criticisms

Han nationalism, often manifesting as ethno-nationalist sentiments emphasizing Han cultural and historical superiority, has gained prominence in contemporary China amid the country's economic and geopolitical resurgence. This ideology draws on imperial traditions and neotraditionalist movements, such as the Han Clothing Movement that emerged in 2001, promoting revival of Han attire and rituals as symbols of racial and civilizational primacy.^[153] Once confined to online fringes, "Imperial Han" nationalism now influences public discourse and policy debates, advocating for assertive reclamation of territories historically linked to Han dominance, including regions like Xinjiang and Tibet.^[47] The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has historically navigated Han nationalism through official promotion of a multi-ethnic "Chinese" identity while periodically condemning "Han chauvinism" to preserve territorial unity. Mao Zedong explicitly criticized Han chauvinist tendencies among cadres in the 1950s, viewing them as obstacles to integrating minorities, a stance echoed by Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping, who in 2021 reiterated warnings against ethnic superiority to counter separatism.^[154] ^[155] Despite these rebukes, CCP policies have facilitated Han demographic dominance in minority regions via state-sponsored migration, with Han populations rising from 6% to over 40% in Xinjiang between 1949 and 2000, often correlating with economic incentives and infrastructure projects.^[152] Controversies surrounding Han-centric policies center on assimilation efforts in Xinjiang and Tibet, where mass detentions, surveillance, and cultural restrictions have targeted Uyghur and Tibetan populations. In Xinjiang, over one million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been detained in internment camps since 2017, with documented instances of forced labor, sterilization, and ideological reeducation to instill Han-normative values, prompting genocide accusations from entities like the U.S. State Department based on satellite imagery, survivor testimonies, and leaked internal documents.^[156] ^[157] Similar dynamics in Tibet involve Han influxes diluting local demographics and suppressing religious practices, as seen in the 2008 Lhasa riots triggered by cultural erosion grievances.^[158] These measures, framed by Beijing as counter-terrorism and poverty alleviation, have escalated ethnic tensions, with Han settlers reporting mutual distrust amid Uyghur-led attacks like the 2014 Urumqi market bombing that killed 43.^[159] Criticisms of Han dominance highlight systemic privileges, including preferential access to political power and resources, which exacerbate minority marginalization despite affirmative action facades. Academic analyses note Han frustration directed at minorities' perceived entitlements, fueling online supremacist rhetoric that undermines CCP unity narratives, potentially destabilizing the multi-ethnic state as warned in internal leadership assessments.^[46] Internationally, reports from human rights organizations, drawing on defector accounts and forensic evidence, decry these policies as cultural erasure, though Chinese state media dismisses them as Western fabrications biased against national sovereignty.^[160] Domestically, even CCP-aligned discourse acknowledges risks of Han exceptionalism fracturing cohesion, as evidenced by suppressed protests like those following the 2022 Urumqi fire, where Han-minority divides surfaced amid lockdown grievances.^[161]

Other Uses

Historical dynasties and states

The Han (韓) state existed during the Warring States period (c. 403–221 BCE) as one of the seven major powers vying for dominance in ancient China, alongside Qin, Chu, Yan, Zhao, Wei, and Qi. It originated from the tripartite division of the larger Jin state in 403 BCE, when descendants of the Ji clan received enfeoffment from the Zhou king, controlling territories primarily in southern Shanxi and northern Henan provinces. Geographically constrained and militarily weaker than its rivals, Han focused on hydraulic engineering projects like early canal systems to bolster agriculture but struggled against encroachments, ultimately falling to Qin's conquest in 230 BCE as part of the latter's campaign to unify the realm.^[162] The Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), from which the majority ethnic group of China derives its name, represented a foundational era of imperial consolidation following the Qin dynasty's collapse. Established by Liu Bang (r. 202–195 BCE), a peasant-turned-general who defeated rival warlord Xiang Yu in the Chu–Han Contention (206–202 BCE), it emphasized Confucian bureaucracy, legal reforms, and territorial expansion, reaching populations exceeding 50 million by the first century CE. Divided into Western Han (206 BCE–9 CE), with capital at Chang'an and innovations in silk production, ironworking, and seismology, and Eastern Han (25–220 CE), relocated to Luoyang after the Xin interregnum under reformer Wang Mang (9–23 CE), the dynasty fostered long-distance trade via the Silk Road and paper's invention around 105 CE.^[163]^[164] Its decline accelerated after 184 CE amid eunuch-dictator conflicts, peasant rebellions like the Yellow Turban uprising, and warlord fragmentation, culminating in the dynasty's formal end in 220 CE and the onset of the Three Kingdoms period. The Han legacy endured through administrative models influencing subsequent dynasties and cultural standardization that solidified Chinese identity.^[163]

Geographic features and places

The Han River in central China, also known as the Hanjiang, is a major left tributary of the Yangtze River, with a length of approximately 1,530 kilometers (950 miles).^[165] It originates in the Micang Mountains in southwestern Shaanxi Province and flows eastward between the Qinling and Daba mountain ranges before turning southeast through Hubei Province to join the Yangtze near Wuhan.^[165] This river supports extensive agriculture and hydropower in its basin, which spans parts of Shaanxi, Hubei, and Chongqing, and has historically facilitated transportation and settlement in the region.^[166] A separate Han River exists in southeastern China, flowing through Fujian and Guangdong provinces as part of the Pearl River system.^[167] Rising in the Wuyi Mountains northwest of Changting in Fujian, its upper course is called the Ting River, and it extends southward to the coastal plain, contributing to the densely populated Pearl River Delta.^[167] In Korea, the Han River (Hangang) traverses the northern part of the peninsula, originating on the western slopes of the Taebaek Mountains and flowing generally westward for about 514 kilometers (319 miles).^[168] Its basin covers roughly 35,770 square kilometers, including portions in both North and South Korea, and it bisects Seoul, serving as a vital waterway for urban development, industry, and recreation.^[168]^[169] The river's annual discharge reaches 16 billion cubic meters, underscoring its hydrological significance.^[169]

Personal names and notable individuals

Han (韩; Hán) functions primarily as a surname in Chinese personal nomenclature, tracing its origins to the ancient feudal state of Han during the Warring States period (403–221 BCE), from which ruling descendants adopted the name.^[170] It remains prevalent among Han Chinese populations, with bearers distributed across mainland China and overseas communities, particularly from Guangdong and Fujian provinces.^[171] Notable historical figures bearing the surname include Han Xin (died 196 BC), a strategist and general whose military campaigns, including victories over Chu forces, were pivotal in Liu Bang's establishment of the Han dynasty.^[172] ^[173] Han Fei (c. 280–233 BC), a philosopher and statesman from the Han royal house, synthesized Legalist doctrines emphasizing law (fa), power (shi), and technique (shu) to advocate for centralized autocratic rule.^[174] ^[175] Han Yu (768–824), a Tang dynasty official, essayist, and poet, championed the guwen (ancient prose) movement to revive classical Confucian styles and critiqued Buddhist influences, laying groundwork for later Neo-Confucian developments.^[176] ^[177] In contemporary contexts, Han Zheng (born April 1954) serves as China's Vice President since 2023, having previously held roles as Shanghai's Party Secretary and executive vice premier, with a career focused on urban development and economic policy.^[178] ^[179] While Han occasionally appears as a given name or in compound forms, its usage remains subordinate to its role as a hereditary surname.^[180]

References

[1]
Main Data of the Seventh National Population Census
May 11, 2021 · The population of the Han ethnic group was 1,286.31 million, accounting for 91.11 percent; that of the ethnic minorities was 125.47 million, ...
[2]
Communiqué of the Seventh National Population Census (No. 2)
May 11, 2021 · Of the national population, 1286311334 persons or 91.11 percent were of the Han ethnic group and 125467390 persons or 8.89 percent were of ...
[3]
Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE)
The Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) reunified China, was divided into two periods, and was a pivotal time with the Silk Road and Confucianism.
[4]
The formation and development of the Chinese nation with multi ...
Dec 18, 2017 · The growth of the Han ethnicity was not entirely due to natural population growth; the more important factor was the absorption of the non-Han ...
[5]
Genetic Structure of the Han Chinese Population Revealed by ...
Using over 350,000 genome-wide autosomal SNPs in over 6000 Han Chinese samples from ten provinces of China, our study revealed a one-dimensional “north-south” ...
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Ancient DNA Reveals That the Genetic Structure of the Northern ...
May 4, 2015 · Many genetic studies have shown that Han Chinese can be divided into two distinct groups: northern Han Chinese and southern Han Chinese.
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The Han Empire
The dynasty was named after the Han river valley, from whence Gao Zu ruled the empire. Unlike the preceding Qin government, which persecuted Confucianism, Gao ...Missing: facts | Show results with:facts
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[PDF] Critical Han Studies - Scholars at Harvard
For while Han as an ethnic term can be dated at least as far back as the sixth century. c.e., its meaning and usage varied greatly over the succeeding ...
[9]
How did 漢 come to represent the Han people and civilization?
Dec 28, 2020 · After the Qin (221-206 BC), from which the name "China" most likely derives, the Han was the second imperial dynasty in Chinese history. Because ...
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Guys and gals: Or, why the "Chinese" are called "Han" - Language Log
Oct 19, 2017 · Such terms derived from "Hànrén 汉人 (漢人)" ("Han people"), which generally became a respectable designation again after the collapse of the ...
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Fan and Han: The Origins and Uses of a Conceptual Dichotomy in ...
Whereas the Northern Wei used Han as an ethnonym for the indigenous "Chinese" population, the Tang used it as an alternative name for the empire. In Tang (and ...
[12]
[PDF] MAKING THE MAJORITY: DEFINING HAN IDENTITY IN CHINESE ...
Mar 20, 2008 · When asked to define the term, most people simply equated Han with the Chinese. ... “Zhongguo min zu zhi shi 中國民族之始 (Origin of the Chinese ...
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Ethnic Classification Writ Large - Thomas S. Mullaney, 2004
The PRC-era Ethnic Classification Project, or minzu shibie, was an inventive process of social engineering, not simply an attempt at neutrally reflecting ...
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The real reason behind China's repression of ethnic minorities by ...
Apr 5, 2022 · Beijing officially recognizes 56 ethnic groups including the Han, the result of an ethnic classification project conducted since the 1950s.
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Ethnicity and the Han - Chinese Studies - Oxford Bibliographies
Jun 27, 2018 · The Han are recognized by the Chinese state as the national majority and the core of the Chinese multi-ethnic nation. The Han majority minzu, ...Missing: credible | Show results with:credible
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[PDF] The Han Minzu, Fragmented Identities, and Ethnicity - BORIS Portal
In China, there are fifty-six minzu that have been recognized by the state after the extensive Minzu Classification Project in the. 1950s. The Han minzu ...<|separator|>
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Population structure of Han Chinese in the modern Taiwanese ...
We find the Taiwanese Han Chinese clustered into three cline groups: 5% were of northern Han Chinese ancestry, 79.9% were of southern Han Chinese ancestry, and ...
[18]
Yellow River Early Neolithic - Summary - eHRAF Archaeology
Yellow River Early Neolithic settlements in China occur with the onset of the Mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum around 9000 BP. The warmer and wetter conditions ...
[19]
Archaeological evidence for initial migration of Neolithic Proto Sino ...
Dec 12, 2022 · Recent linguistic and genetic studies have traced its origin to Neolithic millet farmers in the Yellow River region of China around 8,000 y ago ...
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Neolithic ancestors of Han Chinese and Tibetans lived by Yellow River
Sep 6, 2024 · Originating around the middle reaches of the Yellow River and dating back 5,000 to 7,000 years, the Yangshao culture is considered to have been ...
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The demic expansion of Yangshao culture inferred from ancient ...
Jul 1, 2025 · Originating from the middle Yellow River, Yangshao culture is one of the most influential archaeological cultures in Neolithic China.
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Archaeogenetics: Tracing ancient migrations from the Yellow River
Jan 8, 2024 · Those Yangshao people who remained close to the Yellow River ultimately became the Han Chinese of history. Others migrated after 6000 years ago ...
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Genomic substructure in Yellow River Basin farmers during the ...
Discussion. The archaeological sequence from Peiligang culture through Yangshao culture to Longshan culture represents the key developmental stages of ...Missing: roots | Show results with:roots
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Ancient Mitogenomes Reveal the Origins and Genetic Structure of ...
May 27, 2022 · Here, we sequenced 172 complete mitochondrial genomes, ranging from the Yangshao to Longshan period, from individuals related to the Shimao ...
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Forensic characteristics and genetic analysis of both 27 Y-STRs and ...
Haplogroup O-M175 was the most predominant haplogroup in our Han Chinese data, ranging from 67.34% (Henan Han) to 93.16% (Guangdong Han). The highest haplogroup ...
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Paternal genetic structure analysis of the modern Han populations ...
Our results demonstrated that the O-M175 haplogroup represents the predominant paternal lineage in Han populations, with frequencies ranging from 60.53% ( ...
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Genetic structure and demographic history of Northern Han people ...
Nov 2, 2022 · We found that Liaoning Han people have genetic similarities with other northern Han people (Shandong, Henan, and Shanxi) and Liaoning Manchu people.
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Ancient DNA Reveals That the Genetic Structure of the Northern ...
The results show that the ancient people of Hengbei bore a strong genetic resemblance to present-day northern Han Chinese and were genetically distinct from ...
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Population expansion from central plain to northern coastal China ...
Dec 20, 2024 · We deduce that the genetic stability of northern Han populations might be associated with specific sociocultural contexts in China, such as a ...
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the formation and evolution of the Hua-Xia ethnic group and Hua ...
May 11, 2022 · We can identify two important periods of prehistoric archaeological cultures that may have played key roles in the formation of the Hua-Xia ethnic group and ...
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China's initial political unification and its aftermath - PubMed Central
Mar 16, 2015 · During the third century BC, the Qin Dynasty first politically unified this fractious landscape, across an area that covers much of what is now China.
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Tracing Bai-Yue Ancestry in Aboriginal Li People on Hainan Island
Sep 29, 2022 · One hypothesis proposes the HNL migrated from South China and are descendants of the ancient Bai-Yue lineage. ... Han Chinese expansion in the ...Missing: southward | Show results with:southward
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Population Genetic Analysis of Modern and Ancient DNA Variations ...
Oct 30, 2019 · The 23 autosomal-STRs included in the Huaxia Platinum System were amplified from 3,089 northern-Han Chinese individuals residing in the Shanxi ...
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An Overview of the Qin and Han Chinese Dynasties | TheCollector
Mar 31, 2025 · The Qin Dynasty first unified China and built the Great Wall. The Han Dynasty consolidated this, lasting four centuries, and expanded trade.
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The Dynasties That Shaped China Part 2
Jun 30, 2025 · The Qin set the stage for imperial rule, while the Han built on it, ushering in a golden age of culture, science, and diplomacy.
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4000 BCE-1000 CE - Asia for Educators - Columbia University
The Han greatly expands the Chinese empire. The Han dynasty retains the centralized bureaucracy and unified political system of the Qin but adopts and ...
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CHINESE DYNASTIES AND RULERS - China - Facts and Details
The Chinese polity was first consolidated and proclaimed an empire during the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC).
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Imperial China: Culture and Power, 1st–2nd Millennia CE
The Sui and Tang Dynasties. The Sui Dynasty, which replaced the Han Dynasty, ruled China from 581 to 618 CE. Founded by Emperor Wen, the Sui Dynasty is noted ...
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Modern Chinese nationalism and the awakening of self ...
Dec 30, 2019 · The period of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China was the formation stage of modern Chinese nationalism and also the stage of ...
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[PDF] Han-Nationalism Throughout the Ages
Jun 22, 2023 · It compares the multiple resurgences of Han-centricity and. Confucianism in the 1900s (late to post-Qing), 1980s (post-Mao) and 2010s (present ...
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[PDF] The Great Han - Brandeis ScholarWorks
tremendous contributions to Chinese civilization and culture as well as the extended period of unity that the Han Empire provided to the people of China proper.
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[PDF] The Bureaucratic Factor in PRC Ethnic Policy: Lessons from the 1950s
Oct 24, 2024 · Over the past decade, the People's Republic of China has sought to aggres- sively assimilate ethnic minorities. International organizations and ...
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Is Assimilation the New Norm for China's Ethnic Policy? | Epicenter
Feb 25, 2022 · Respecting the rights and distinct cultures of ethnic minorities was one of the Chinese Communist Party's founding principles.
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"Mao's Last Revolution": China's Cultural Transformation | Origins
Aug 5, 2016 · The Cultural Revolution was simultaneously a political and a cultural movement, aiming not only at political upheaval but also the transformation of social and ...
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[PDF] The Breakdown of Traditional Establishment under Mao Zedong
Jun 14, 2024 · An other noteworthy aspect of the Cultural Revolution and the effects it had on Chinese identity was the way in which Communist ideology ...
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The operations of contemporary Han Chinese privilege - PMC
This article discusses the conceptual underpinnings and performance of Han Chinese privilege in the People's Republic of China.Missing: credible | Show results with:credible
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The Rising Tide of 'Imperial Han' Nationalism in China - The Diplomat
Dec 2, 2023 · This fusion of communist ideology with traditional Chinese religious and cultural elements exemplifies their strategic use of iconography and ...
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China's population drops for second year, with record low birth rate
Jan 17, 2024 · China's population aged 60 and over reached 296.97 million in 2023, about 21.1% of its total population, up from 280.04 million in 2022.Missing: Han | Show results with:Han
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Han Chinese | History, Population, Subgroups, & Culture | Britannica
Sep 24, 2025 · The Han Chinese are an East Asian ethnic group and the world's largest ethnic group, with more than 1.4 billion members.Missing: credible | Show results with:credible
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PEOPLE - Taiwan.gov.tw - Government Portal of the Republic of ...
While Taiwan may be described as a predominantly Han Chinese society, with more than 95 percent of the population claiming Han ancestry, its heritage is much ...
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The current distribution of the overseas Chinese population
Aug 8, 2025 · We raise and endeavor to answer four basic questions: (1) How many overseas Chinese are there currently in the world? (2) How are they distributed among the ...Missing: Han | Show results with:Han
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Southeast Asia as a Key Hub The Han Chinese ...
Sep 16, 2025 · a) Han identity is cultural, not biological. The “Han” is an ethno-cultural identity that formed over centuries through shared language, customs ...
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What are the countries with the most Chinese people in the world ...
Apr 10, 2023 · According to an online data source, outside Asia, United States had 5.37 million overseas Chinese in 2021. Canada had 1.92 million overseas Chinese in 2021.
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Han Expansion to the South - Chinese Studies - Oxford Bibliographies
Mar 27, 2019 · Herman 2007 and Faure 2007 examine how China's expanding empires utilized institutional and ritual features to create a multitude of political ...Missing: southward | Show results with:southward
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THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE: MIGRATION, COMPETITION ...
Jan 3, 2022 · As a result, the Han underwent three major waves of mass southward migration (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994; Wen et al., 2004).5 These migrations ...
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[PDF] Han Migration and the Settlement of Taiwan
Before the seventeenth century, the Han Chinese came to Taiwan mainly for fishing and trading. The Southern Song records suggest that there were Han settlers in ...
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China's Rapid Development Has Transformed Its Migration Trends
Jan 28, 2022 · An estimated 10.5 million Chinese citizens lived abroad as of 2020, according to United Nations estimates.<|control11|><|separator|>
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NEW EMIGRATION FROM CHINA: PATTERNS, CAUSES AND ... - NIH
In this paper, we survey the scholarly literature on emigration from China focusing on the post-1949 period. We review policy changes and patterns of ...
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[PDF] Migration and Inequality in Xinjiang: A Survey of Han and Uyghur ...
In short, the history of migration into Xinjiang has reinforced the characterization of Han Chinese as those who joined the. XPCC or who obtained government, ...
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[PDF] MANDARIN AND OTHER SINITIC LANGUAGES - HAL
Oct 17, 2022 · The Sinitic languages are historically related to the Tibeto-Burman languages, together forming the large Sino-Tibetan language family which is.
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The Sino-Tibetan Language Family - STEDT - UC Berkeley
The more than 1.1 billion speakers of Sinitic (the Chinese dialects) constitute the world's largest speech community. ... Distribution of TB languages by number ...
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History of Chinese Language - Cal State East Bay
The Sinitic languages are spoken by over 1,000 million people. The vast majority of these are in China (over 980 million) and Taiwan (19 million), ...
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[PDF] de Sousa Sinitic MSEA
Nov 21, 2012 · The Sinitic languages. The Sinitic languages are the descendents of the historical Chinese language. The periodisation of the Chinese language ...
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Mutual intelligibility of Chinese dialects experimentally tested
We tested the mutual intelligibility of 15 Chinese dialects functionally at the level of isolated words (word-intelligibility) and the level of sentences ( ...
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Sino-Tibetan languages | Definition, Characteristics, Examples ...
Sinitic is divided into a number of language groups, by far the most important of which is Mandarin (or Northern Chinese). Mandarin, which includes Modern ...Language affiliations · Proto-Sinitic · Linguistic characteristics
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(Standard) language ideology and regional Putonghua in Chinese ...
Sep 20, 2020 · Putonghua is a relatively young standard variety (China 2016), standardised in the 1950s, and it is phonologically based on the Mandarin ...
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What is Putonghua? | CLI - Chinese Language Institute
Oct 24, 2024 · For a language that has only been recognized as China's official national standard for less than a century, Putonghua has already become ...The History of Putonghua · Putonghua today · How many people actually...
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Chinese writing | System, Paper, & History - Britannica
Oct 16, 2025 · Chinese writing is a basically logographic writing system and one of the world's great writing systems. Like Semitic writing in West Asia ...
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Untangling the Shared Origins and Evolutions of Chinese Hanzi ...
Chinese characters, known in Chinese as hanzi, have a history dating back over 3000 years to oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty.
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Chinese Ethics - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Jan 10, 2008 · This article will introduce ethical issues raised by some of the most influential texts in Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Legalism, and Chinese Buddhism.
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Confucianism in Han Dynasty - CHINESE SOCIAL SCIENCES NET
Jul 18, 2023 · During the rule of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BCE), Dong Zhongshu's proposal that Confucianism become the unifying ideology of the Han Empire ...
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The Analects of Confucius - Columbia University Press
Confucius's teachings focus on cultural and peaceful pursuits and the characteristics of benevolent and culturally distinguished government. He also ...
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China's Han Dynasty and the Establishment of Imperial Confucianism
Jun 15, 2023 · In this article, I will discuss how the Han dynasty used Confucianism to solidify its power and to avoid the extremes that had caused the collapse of the ...
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6.5 Han dynasty Confucianism and state ideology - Fiveable
The Confucian emphasis on education, moral cultivation, and social harmony became deeply ingrained in Chinese culture; Even during periods of foreign rule ...<|separator|>
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Philosophy in Han Dynasty China
Jan 3, 2022 · These were the years of the Han Dynasty, in its two parts, the Western Han (206 BCE–9 CE) and Eastern Han (25–220 CE). Some of the main trends, ...
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Chinese Studies: Pre-Modern Literature - BYU
Sep 27, 2025 · Kongzi 孔子 or Confucius (ca. 551–479 BC). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy: Mark Csikszentmihalyi. · Mengzi 孟子 or Mencius (ca. 372–289 BC).
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CHIN 342 / 542 Classical Chinese: Classics in English translation
It was written by the court historians Sima Tan and his son Sima Qian (145-87? BC). This long work contains 130 chapters and is divided into several sections ...
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[PDF] An Anthology of Chinese Literature - Beginnings to 1911
An anthology of Chinese literature: beginnings to 1911 I edited and translated by Stephen Owen. p. cm. Translations from Chinese. Includes bibliographical ...
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Resources Organized by Country/Region: China - Asia in Art
Yet calligraphy was revered as a fine art long before painting; indeed, it was not until the Song dynasty, when painting became closely allied with calligraphy ...
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The Traditional art of China
The traditional art of China originated from the Neolithic Period, with calligraphy, music, paper-cutting, painting, and opera as the major representative arts.
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On the Silk Road and the High Seas: Chinese Ceramics, Culture ...
Oct 27, 2011 · Examples of proto-porcelain appeared in China about 3,000 years ago and hard-paste porcelain began to be made around 1,800 years ago. This ...Missing: material | Show results with:material
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Expedition Magazine | Chinese Jades - Penn Museum
The first jade objects of probable ritual use appear in the late Neolithic, roughly 2,000 B.C. or a bit earlier. In Shang and Chou, the repertoire of ceremonial ...
[83]
China's Regional Cuisines — Chinese Food Types North–South
salty, simple, less vegetables with wheat as the staple food · Western China food — hearty halal ...
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[PDF] Chinese Culture & Foods
Rice is china's staple food. Scallions, bean sprouts, cabbage, and gingerroot are other traditional foods.8 Tofu is an important source of protein for the ...
[85]
Exploring the traditional Chinese diet and its association with health ...
The consumption of rice, wheat, vegetables, and poultry has been a significant part of the TCD since the Qin Dynasty, dating back approximately 2230 years. This ...
[86]
[PDF] Introduction: - Thinking about Food in Chinese History
there is a set of enduring core elements of "Chinese" food culture, such as. Chang's notion of the "fan-cai principle"-according to which Chinese diets are ...
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Top 10 Traditional Chinese Festivals - China Highlights
The traditional Chinese festivals include Chinese New Year, the Lantern Festival, Tomb Sweeping Festival, Double Seven Festival and the Winter Solstice.<|separator|>
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8 Major Chinese Holidays & Festivals To Learn About | Study In China
There are 8 major Chinese holidays, namely 除夕, 春节, 元宵节, 清明节, 端午节, 中元节, 中秋节, 冬节 that you can't go wrong with.
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Chinese Customs: Daily Rituals and Table Etiquette | ChinaFetching
Chinese customs include daily rituals, greeting etiquette, and basic table manners, which once strictly followed hierarchical structures and are now seen as ...
[90]
Marc Healy's Chinese Food Page - DePaul University
There is no one type of Chinese food. · Meats and vegetables are always cut into bite sized portions by the cook so that they cook quickly (saving time and ...<|control11|><|separator|>
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Han Chinese | History, Population & Culture-WuKong Blog
Aug 14, 2025 · Han Chinese social and cultural practices are deeply rooted in traditions that emphasize family values, respect for ancestors, and social ...
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Marriage and Family in China: Ideology and Practice
Marriage and family in China have been shaped by three distinct ideologies: 1) Confucianism for much of its history until the early twentieth century.
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[PDF] The Confucian Ideal of Filial Piety and Its Impact on Chinese Family ...
Mar 30, 2023 · Confucianism teaches that the family is a hierarchical structure, with the father at the top, followed by the mother, then the eldest son, and ...
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Women in Traditional China | Asia Society
Women's roles were primarily kinship roles: daughter, sister, wife, daughter-in-law, mother, and mother-in-law. In all these roles, it was incumbent on women to ...
[95]
China's One-child Policy and the Changing Family - ResearchGate
Aug 6, 2025 · It is believed that this generation of only children has dramatically changed family structure, family relationships, and family lifestyle in China.
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[PDF] China's Changing Family Structure - American Enterprise Institute
The family is the fundamental unit of society: its most basic building block. It is the foundation for all the more complex arrangements humanity.
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Impact of filial piety on residents' subjective well-being in China ...
Jan 19, 2024 · The research results indicate that different type of filial piety has different impacts on SWB; income level has a significant moderating effect.
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Chinese culture became more individualistic: Evidence from family ...
Jan 4, 2023 · China's one-child policy, which was introduced in 1980 and ended in 2015, penalized parents for having more than one child. This policy may have ...
[99]
10 Inventions From China's Han Dynasty That Changed the World
Sep 20, 2019 · The 400-year rule of the Han Dynasty generated a slew of innovations in everything from agriculture to metallurgy to seismology.
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Ten Han Dynasty Inventions That Changed the World
Invention of Paper-making · Suspension Bridge · Deep Drilling · Wheelbarrow · Seismometer · Blast Furnace · Adjustable Wrench · Moldboard Plow.
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China Overview: Development news, research, data | World Bank
Since China began to open up and reform its economy in 1978, GDP growth has averaged over 9 percent a year, and more than 800 million people have lifted ...
[102]
[PDF] China's Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction (1978-2002)
national poverty line, rural poverty population has dropped from 250 million in 1978 to 28.2 million in 2002, decreasing by 88.7%. Poverty population has ...
[103]
Achievements of the Han Dynasty - World History Encyclopedia
Sep 14, 2017 · The achievements of the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE), often regarded by scholars and the ancient Chinese themselves as the golden era of Chinese culture.
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China's fertility crisis is so dire, rates are falling below 'replacement ...
Aug 4, 2025 · Indeed, per the World Population Review, China's birth rate was 7.24 live births per 1,000 people in 2025.<|separator|>
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Fertility Decline in China and Its National Military, Structural ... - RAND
Sep 22, 2025 · Because of population change, China faces a steep labor force contraction—a 28-percent decrease by 2050 from the labor force's peak population ...Missing: crisis | Show results with:crisis
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China's demographic crisis means it's going to run out of workers
Oct 11, 2025 · The United Nations projects that in 2050, China's population will fall to 1.26 billion and the age distribution will worsen: About 10 percent ...
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China's population continues to decline; birth rate remains low - bofit.fi
Feb 21, 2025 · 240 million (17 %) were aged 15 or younger and 310 million (22 %) were 60 or older. The number of elderly has grown rapidly. As recently as 2006 ...Missing: crisis | Show results with:crisis
[108]
New marriages in China crash to record low, while divorces on the rise
Feb 10, 2025 · Some 6.1 million couples registered their marriages in 2024, a plunge of 20.5% from the previous year, according to data released Saturday by China's Ministry ...
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China's marriage rate is at its lowest in nearly 40 years. Why are ...
Sep 26, 2025 · China's marriage rate is at its lowest in nearly 40 years. Why are singles put off settling down? Couples who are getting married are doing so ...
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China's Aging Crisis: The Lasting Impact of the One-Child Policy
Jan 25, 2025 · While these policies slowed population growth, they left lasting demographic issues, including a rapidly aging society and a skewed sex ratio.
[111]
The 19 Percent Revisited: How Youth Unemployment Has Changed ...
Sep 3, 2025 · China's urban youth unemployment rate for ages 16 to 24 has hovered around 20% since the pandemic. When it reached a record 21.3% in mid-2023, ...
[112]
China's youth unemployment is so bad that Gen Z job-seekers are ...
Aug 12, 2025 · With China's youth unemployment being sky-high at 14.5% for 16- to 24-year-olds, there are plenty of jobless professionals to commiserate with ...
[113]
China's Hukou System and the Urban-Rural Divide
Aug 18, 2021 · By restricting educational access, the Hukou system also restricts migrants' access to human capital, stifling intergenerational economic ...Missing: social challenges
[114]
Closing the Gap: China's Rural-Urban Divide – CKGSB Knowledge
Oct 24, 2024 · All Chinese residents hold a hukou—an official document certifying residency of a particular place—which determines access to social services, ...
[115]
Effect of long working hours and insomnia on depressive symptoms ...
Jul 16, 2021 · In China, long working hours and insomnia are relatively common among internet company employees. Considering that both can affect mental ...
[116]
China's tech workers burn out in '996' rat race - CNN
May 27, 2019 · Despite the humor, Wang, the tech workers and experts alike say overwork is leading to serious mental and physical health problems.
[117]
When giving birth is a national duty: Beijing's struggle to reverse ...
Oct 8, 2025 · China's demographic dilemma is characterized by a rapidly aging population, a declining birth rate, and a shrinking workforce. Many other ...
[118]
China's Failing Bid to Reverse Population Decline
Jul 3, 2025 · China faces a dual demographic crisis as overall dwindling birth rates parallel an aging society. Its government has introduced policies to make ...
[119]
Ancestor Worship - Chinese Studies - Oxford Bibliographies
Oct 24, 2024 · Ancestor worship refers to rituals to commemorate and venerate the spirits of deceased forebears, and is an old and influential part of Chinese ...
[120]
The Jade Emperor & Other Gods of the Earthly Domain
The Jade Emperor (Yuhuang or Yudi) was considered to be the ruler of Heaven. He was thought to be like a human emperor, in that he ruled over a heavenly court ...
[121]
Traditional and modern Chinese superstitions - Daxue Consulting
Jul 27, 2020 · The traditional secular superstition is mainly to believe that certain activities, ceremonies, numbers, natural phenomena, and dates will bring good luck.
[122]
Ancestor Worship in Ancient China - World History Encyclopedia
Oct 17, 2017 · Ancestor worship in ancient China dates back to the Neolithic period, and it would prove to be the most popular and enduring Chinese religious practice.
[123]
Settling the Dead: Beliefs Concerning the Afterlife - Asia for Educators
There were two universal aspects of ancestor veneration in traditional China: mortuary rites (sangli) and sacrificial rites (jili). Mortuary rites involved ...
[124]
[PDF] Still under the ancestors' shadow? Ancestor worship and family ...
Jan 3, 2018 · Ancestor worship is linked to early marriage, more children, higher son preference, and more sons in contemporary China.
[125]
Ancestor worship in contemporary China: An empirical investigation
Aug 9, 2025 · Ancestor worship, a core branch of Chinese folk religion, highlights one's moral obligation to connect closely with their kin across space and ...
[126]
(PDF) Ancestor Worship and the Longevity of Chinese Civilization ...
Ancestor worship, we argue, is an ancient trait that has persisted in China, as in other parts of the world, since prehistoric times.
[127]
Folk Belief and Its Legitimization in China - jstor
worship, and ancestor worship. At the same time, related to variety of other beliefs, such as deities a. 4. Folk beliefs often permeated the everyday live.
[128]
Han dynasty - Encyclopedia of Buddhism
Modern scholars believe that Buddhism first entered China during the Eastern Han era. Buddhism was first mentioned in 65 AD. Liu Ying (d. 71 AD), a half-brother ...
[129]
Buddhism in Chinese Art (2nd century through 907 C.E.) - Smarthistory
Buddhism first arrived in China during the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). The earliest visual images of the Buddha to arrive in China were likely ...
[130]
Daoist Philosophy
The resurgence of Daoism after the Han dynasty is often known as Neo-Daoism. As a result, Confucian scholars sought to annotate and reinterpret their own ...
[131]
Sanjiao: The Three Teachings - Asia for Educators
Most anthologies of Chinese religion are organized by the logic of the sanjiao (literally “three teachings”) of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.
[132]
Government policy toward religion in the People's Republic of China
Aug 30, 2023 · In the 1950s, as a part of a nationalization campaign, the government confiscated many temples, churches and mosques for secular use. Foreign ...Missing: secularization | Show results with:secularization
[133]
The State of Religion in China - Council on Foreign Relations
The CCP is officially atheist. The party prohibits its roughly ninety-eight million party members from holding religious beliefs, and it requires the expulsion ...
[134]
Non-religion in China | Pew Research Center
Aug 30, 2023 · And while the Chinese Communist Party espouses atheism as its official ideology, just one-third of Chinese adults identify as atheist (wu shen ...
[135]
10 things to know about China's policies on religion
Oct 23, 2023 · China is pursuing a policy of “Sinicization” that requires religious groups to align their doctrines, customs and morality with Chinese culture.
[136]
Taiwan - Freedom of Thought Report - Humanists International
Dec 7, 2023 · The state is secular, with separation of religious and political authorities, not discriminating against any religion or belief · No formal ...
[137]
2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Taiwan
The constitution provides for freedom of religious belief. In May, the Legislative Yuan (parliament) passed a law allowing qualified religious groups to change ...
[138]
[PDF] Ethnic Minority Elites in China's Party-State Leadership
While the Chinese authorities need to recruit and promote more non-Han leaders to carry out the Party-state's minority policies and demonstrate Chinese ...
[139]
New Textbook Reveals Xi Jinping's Doctrine of Han-centric Nation ...
May 24, 2024 · Xi's new doctrine, in contrast, demands their subservience to Han norms, and the slow erasure of their languages, cultures, and identities— ...
[140]
One Nation Under Xi: How China's Leader Is Remaking Its Identity
Oct 11, 2022 · Xi's nationhood drive is also aimed at building unity among China's Han people, who make up 91 percent of its population. Officials see ...<|separator|>
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Han nationalism - Wikipedia
... Han Chinese in China. In a party directive which was drafted for the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party titled "Criticize Han Chauvinism," Mao ...
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[DOC] CPC Guidelines for Governing Xinjiang in the New Era
He emphasized governing Xinjiang in accordance with the law, maintaining stability through ethnic unity, strengthening cultural identity and bonds, bringing ...
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Beijing or the relentless fusion of ethnic minority identity with Han ...
Sep 3, 2024 · China's approach to ethnic minorities under the regime of President Xi is 'Sinicization;' making them to reject all "foreign influence," and ...
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China: Draft 'Ethnic Unity' Law Tightens Ideological Control
Sep 28, 2025 · The draft law prohibit acts that “damage ethnic unity,” an overly broad label the government has long abused to punish minority community ...
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Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law of the People's Republic of China ...
May 31, 1984 · Article 11 Autonomous agencies in ethnic autonomous areas guarantee the freedom of religious belief to citizens of the various nationalities. No ...Missing: facts | Show results with:facts
[146]
Law of the People's Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy
Jan 10, 2024 · Regional ethnic autonomy is a basic policy where minorities self-govern under unified leadership, and is the basic law for its implementation.Missing: facts | Show results with:facts
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Respecting and Protecting the Rights of All Ethnic Groups in Xinjiang
Jul 14, 2021 · The PRC regards equality, unity and common prosperity for all ethnic groups as the basic requirements for managing ethnic affairs and handling ethnic relations.
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[PDF] Demographics and Development in Xinjiang after 1949
In terms of the 2000 census, Xinjiang's 18.46 million people are 45.21% Uyghur and 40.57% Han. The current population situation is similar to that of the Qing ...
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Main Data of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region from the Seventh ...
Jun 16, 2021 · The population of the Han ethnic group increased by 2.174 million persons, including 1.948 million persons who migrated from other provinces.
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China census: migration drives Han population growth in Xinjiang
Jun 15, 2021 · The region's Uygur community grew 16 per cent in the decade to 2020 compared with 25 per cent for Han.
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Ethnic discrimination: Evidence from China - ScienceDirect.com
We find that there is no productivity difference between minority and Han workers in both locations. However, minority workers in Shaanxi receive a 4–7% lower ...
[152]
[PDF] Comparing Ethnic Minorities and Han Chinese in China:
A nationwide survey in 2008 demonstrates that ethnic minorities do have grievances and feel economically disadvantaged. Minority groups are more.
[153]
Ethnic Integration and Development in China - ScienceDirect.com
Empirically, the paper examines whether ethnic divisions between the majority Han Chinese and various other ethnic minorities have an effect on development ...
[154]
The Great Han: Race, Nationalism, and Tradition in China Today - jstor
The Great Hanis an ethnographic study of the Han Clothing Movement,a neotraditionalist and racial nationalist movement that has emerged in China since 2001.
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CRITICIZE HAN CHAUVINISM
We must go to the root and criticize the Han chauvinist ideas which exist to a serious degree among many Party members and cadres.Missing: CCP | Show results with:CCP
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Han Nationalism in China | Al Jazeera Centre for Studies
Mar 20, 2014 · This report illustrates the main aspects of Han nationalism and explains its recent growth. The analysis shows that Beijing intends to promote Han nationalism.
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China's Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang
More than a million Muslims have been arbitrarily detained in China's Xinjiang region. The reeducation camps are just one part of the government's crackdown ...
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“Break Their Lineage, Break Their Roots”: China's Crimes against ...
Apr 19, 2021 · There have been numerous credible reports that Chinese authorities are subjecting Turkic Muslims to forced labor under the government's “idle ...
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China's peripheries: the cases of Tibet and Xinjiang.
This article analyzes the dynamics between center and periphery in the two prominent cases of Xinjiang and Tibet.
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Who are the Uyghurs and why is China being accused of genocide?
May 24, 2022 · China has been accused of committing crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against the Uyghur population and other mostly-Muslim ethnic groups.
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Could Han Chauvinism Turn the 'Chinese Dream ... - The Diplomat
Jun 14, 2016 · That Han chauvinism, or Hanism, poses a serious threat to China's unity and stability have been extensively recognized by China's leadership.
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Breaking Han Silence | Journal of Democracy
The widespread protests that erupted in China in late November, triggered by the deadly fire in Urumqi, were suppressed almost as soon as they started.Missing: criticisms | Show results with:criticisms
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15 Facts about Warring States Period in China
The Warring States Period (475–221 BC) was an era of division in ancient China. This period is known for frequent warfare and annexations of various states.
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Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Oct 1, 2000 · China was reunited under the rule of the Han dynasty, which is divided into two major periods: the Western or Former Han (206 BC–9 AD) and the Eastern or Later ...
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CHINA—Timeline of Historical Periods - Asia for Educators
Han Dynasty: Western/Former Han (206 BCE-9 CE) and Eastern/Later Han (25-220 CE). Modified and consolidated the foundation of the imperial order ...
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Han River | China, Shaanxi & Hubei Provinces - Britannica
It has a total length of about 950 miles (1,530 km). The Han River rises in the Shenqiong Mountains, part of the Micang Mountains in the extreme southwestern ...
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How the Han River Shaped Ancient and Modern China - Sixth Tone
Dec 2, 2022 · The Han River basin sits between China's northern and southern populations. Most of the regions it traverses are in the neighboring provinces of ...
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Han River | Pearl River Delta, tributaries, estuary | Britannica
The Han River rises in the Wuyi Mountains in southwest Fujian province to the north of Changting. Its upper course is known as the Ting River, and it flows ...
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Han River | South Korea, Map, Location, & Facts | Britannica
Han River, river, northern South Korea, rising in the western slopes of the Taebaek-sanmaek (mountains) and flowing generally westward across the peninsula.
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Rivers and Watersheds of Korea
The Han River (Hangang) has the largest drainage area of 35,770 km2 (including the portion in North Korea), and an annual discharge of 16 billion m3, ...
[171]
Han Surname Meaning & Han Family History at Ancestry.com®
(iv) From the Chu Da Han (出大汗) family of the Xianbei ethnic group in northern China, who adopted the surname Han (韓) during the Northern Wei Dynasty (386– ...
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Han 韩 / 韓 Last Name Origins, Meaning, and Surname Distribution
Where do the Hans come from? Most Hans who left China and settled overseas in the past 400 years likely came from the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian.
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7 Important Leaders of the Chinese Military | Norwich University
Han Xin served in the Chinese military during the Han Dynasty, climbing the ladder as a low-level guard before being promoted to the rank of senior general in ...
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SIMA QIAN (c. 145/135-86 B.C.) Records of the Grand Historian The ...
May 14, 2015 · Han Xin, joined by the cavalry general Guan Ying, met his attack and defeated the Chuarmy, killing Long Ju. Han Xin then proceeded to set ...
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Hanfeizi - Bibliography - PhilPapers
Han Feizi (ca. 280 - 233 BCE), was a philosopher and statesman of the Warring States Period. Han Fei was a member of the royal house of Han and believed ...
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Hanfeizi 韓非子
Han Fei was a member of the royal house of Han 韓and a disciple of the Confucian philosopher Xun Kuang 荀況(Xunzi 荀子), together with Li Si 李斯(d. 208 BCE), ...
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The Collected Writings of Han Yu (朱文公校昌黎先生文集) - NUS
Jan 27, 2020 · Han Yu (韩愈, 768–824) was a Chinese historian, poet, and government official of the Tang dynasty who significantly influenced the development ...
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Han Yu
Han Yu (768-828), one of the Tang dynasty's most influential poets and essayists, is best known for his "ancient style prose" (gu wen), part of an aim to ...
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https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/19/china/han-zheng-trump-inauguration-intl-hnk
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Who is Han Zheng, the senior Chinese official attending Trump's ...
Jan 20, 2025 · Chinese Vice President Han Zheng is expected to attend Monday's inauguration after meeting incoming US Vice President JD Vance Sunday.
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Han Baby Name Meaning, Origin, Popularity Insights - Momcozy
In Chinese culture, Han (韩/韓) is a common surname with ancient origins, while in Korean traditions, Han (한) serves as both a surname and given name, ...

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