The Waxiang people () are an unrecognized ethnic group living along the

Yuan River The Yuan River, also known by its Chinese name as the Yuanjiang, is one of the four largest rivers in Hunan province in southeast-central China. It is a tributary of Yangtze River. It is long and rises in Guizhou province in the Miao Mountain ...

in Yuanling County of western

Hunan Hunan is an inland Provinces of China, province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the Administrative divisions of China, province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Gu ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. They call themselves Huaxiang people (), and speak

Waxiang Chinese Waxiang (; ) is a divergent variety of Chinese, spoken by the Waxiang people, an unrecognized ethnic minority group in the northwestern part of Hunan province, China. Waxiang is a distinct language, and is very different from the surrounding ...

. Compared to the Han,

Miao Miao may refer to: * Miao people, linguistically and culturally related group of people, recognized as such by the government of the People's Republic of China * Miao script or Pollard script, writing system used for Miao languages * Miao (Unicode ...

and Tujia people of the region, they are different in terms of living style, farming and other cultural norms.

Population and distribution

The Waxiang people are an unrecognized ethnic group in China, with a population of about 400,000. Currently, the views of scholars and the Chinese government are usually that

, the main language used by Waxiang people, is in the

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

subdivision of the

Chinese language Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39& ...

. The Waxiang people are primarily located in northwestern

province.

Ethnic group designation

Many of the Waxiang people are designated as

, while some are designated as Tujia or Han. According to a study on their physical characteristics, the Waxiang were found to be closest related to the Derung and

Lahu people The Lahu people (; ; Lāhùzú; ) are an ethnic group native to China, Myanmar, and the rest of Southeast Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia. Etymology The Chinese name "Lahu" is a phono-semantic matching of the Lahu endonym, and literally means ...

Notable people

Song Zuying Song Zuying (; born August 13, 1966) is a Chinese classical/folk singer. In 2006, she received a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Crossover Album for ''Song Zu Ying: The Diva Goes To The Movies'' at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards. Early li ...

: mother is

, father is Waxiang.

References

{{Han Chinese subgroups Subgroups of the Han Chinese Yuanling County Ethnic groups in China