The Waxiang people () are an unrecognized ethnic group living along the Yuanjiang River in western

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. They call themselves Huaxiang people (

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners ...

::/wa33 ɕioŋ55/) and they 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, very different from its surrounding Southwe ...

. Compared to the

Han Han may refer to: Ethnic groups * Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group. ** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...

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 very different in terms of clothing, food, living, 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 (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...

. The Waxiang people are usually situated in the

province of China.

Ethnic group designation

Many of the Waxiang people are designated as

, while some are designated as Tujia or

. However, no matter the designated ethnic group, most of them have recognition to the Waxiang ethnic group, and hope to edit the ethnic group category, in addition to establishing a Waxiang autonomous region. According to a study on their physical characteristics, the Waxiang were found to be closest related to the

Derung The Derung (also spelt ''Drung'' or ''Dulong'') people (; endonym: ) are an ethnic group. They form one of the List of ethnic groups in China, 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by China. Their population of 6,000 is found in the Nujiang Li ...

and

Lahu people The Lahu people ( Lāhùzú; Lahu: ''Ladhulsi'' / ''Kawzhawd''; vi, La Hủ) are an ethnic group of China and Mainland Southeast Asia. Etymology The Chinese name "Lahu" literally means "to drag favour from heaven" (拉, lā, "to drag" ...

Notable people

Song Zuying Song Zuying (; born August 13, 1966) is a Chinese classical/folk singer. Early life Song was born in Guzhang County, part of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Hunan. She is of Miao ethnicity, and studied at the Department of Music a ...

: mother is

, father is Waxiang.

References

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