The autonomous regions ( zh, s=自治区, p=Zìzhìqū) are one of four types of

province-level divisions of the People's Republic of China The People's Republic of China is officially divided into 34 province-level administrative divisions, the first level of administrative division in the country. There are four types of divisions at the province level: * Provinces (23) * Auton ...

. Like

Chinese provinces Provinces ( zh, c=省, p=Shěng) are the most numerous type of province-level divisions in the People's Republic of China (PRC). There are currently 22 provinces administered by the PRC and one province that is claimed, but not administere ...

, an autonomous region has its own local government, but under the

law of the People's Republic of China The Law of the People's Republic of China, officially referred to as the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics, is the legal regime of China, with the separate legal traditions and systems of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. C ...

, an autonomous region has more legislative rights, such as the right to "formulate self-government regulations and other separate regulations." An

autonomous region An autonomous administrative division (also referred to as an autonomous area, zone, entity, unit, region, subdivision, province, or territory) is a subnational administrative division or territory, internal territory of a sovereign state that has ...

is the highest level of minority autonomous entity in China, which has a comparably higher population of a particular minority ethnic group. There are five autonomous regions in China:

Guangxi Guangxi,; officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằn ...

, Inner Mongolia (Nei Menggu),

Ningxia Ningxia, officially the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region in Northwestern China. Formerly a province, Ningxia was incorporated into Gansu in 1954 but was later separated from Gansu in 1958 and reconstituted as an autonomous ...

, Tibet (Xizang), and

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

History

Established in 1947, the

Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a small section of C ...

became the first autonomous region in the Chinese liberated zone.

was made autonomous in 1955 after the PRC's founding, and

and

were made autonomous in 1958.

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

was

annexed Annexation, in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. In current international law, it is generally held to ...

by the People's Republic of China in 1951, and was declared an autonomous region in 1965. The designation of Guangxi and Ningxia as Zhuang and

Hui The Hui people are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the northwestern provinces and in the Zhongyuan region. According to the 2 ...

autonomous areas, respectively, was protested by the local

Han Chinese The Han Chinese, alternatively the Han people, are an East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. With a global population of over 1.4 billion, the Han Chinese are the list of contemporary ethnic groups, world's la ...

, who made up two-thirds of the population of each region. Although

Mongols Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...

made up an even smaller percentage of Inner Mongolia than either of these, the ensuing

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government, government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Armed conflict continued intermitt ...

gave little opportunity for protest.

Legal rights

Autonomous regions in China have no legal right to secede, unlike in the Soviet Union – the ''Law of the People's Republic of China on Regional Ethnic Autonomy'', written in 1984, states that "each and every ethnic autonomous region is an inseparable part of the People's Republic of China," and that "any form of... separatism... is absolutely prohibited."

Public goods and services

In general, China's minority regions have some of the highest per capita government spending on education, among other

public goods In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)Oakland, W. H. (1987). Theory of public goods. In Handbook of public economics (Vol. 2, pp. 485–535). Elsevier. is a goods, commodity, product or service that ...

and services. Providing public goods and services in these areas is part of a government effort to reduce regional inequalities, reduce the risk of separatism, and stimulate economic development.

List of autonomous regions

Statistics

Population

Ethnic

Notes

References

External links

Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities in China
{{Articles on first-level administrative divisions of Asian countries R Province-level divisions of China