Contents
Han Chinese
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(漢族 or 汉族)
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Lee Kuan Yew · Sun Yat-Sen · Jackie Chan
Soong Ching-ling · C. S. Wu · Guo Jingjing
Total population
1,310,158,851
19.73% of global human population
(estimate)
Regions with significant populations
Majority populations
People's Republic of China
1,207,541,842
[1]
Hong Kong
6,593,410
[1]
Macau
433,641
[1]
Republic of China (Taiwan)
22,575,365
[1]
Singapore
3,684,936
[2]
Minority populations
Indonesia
7,566,200
[3]
Thailand
7,053,240
[3]
Malaysia
6,590,500
[4]
United States
3,376,031
[3]
Canada
1,612,173
[3]
Peru
1,300,000
[3]
Vietnam
1,263,570
[3]
Philippines
1,146,250
[3]
Myanmar
1,101,314
[3]
Russia
998,000
[3]
Australia
614,694
[3]
Japan
519,561
[3]
Cambodia
343,855
[3]
United Kingdom
296,623
[3]
France
230,515
Italy
210,000
[5]
India
189,470
[3]
Laos
185,765
[3]
Brazil
151,649
[3]
New Zealand
148,570
[6]
Spain
147,928
Netherlands
144,928
[3]
South Korea
137,790
[7]
Languages
Religion
Predominantly Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. Small Christian, Muslim, Xiantian and other religious minorities. Background of Confucianism and Chinese folk religion.[8]
Han Chinese (simplified Chinese: 汉族 or 汉人; traditional Chinese: 漢族 or 漢人; pinyin: hànzú or hànrén) are an ethnic group native to China and, by most modern definitions, the largest single ethnic group in the world.
Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China (mainland China), 98% of the population of the Republic of China (Taiwan), 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the entire global human population. There is substantial genetic, linguistic, cultural, and social diversity among the subgroups of the Han, mainly due to thousands of years of immigration and assimilation of various regional ethnicities and tribes within China. The Han Chinese are a subset of the Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu). An alternative name that many Chinese peoples use to refer to themselves is "Descendants of the Dragon" (Chinese: 龍的傳人 or 龙的传人). Many Han and other Chinese also call themselves "Descendants of the Yan Di (Yan Emperor) and Huang Di (Yellow Emperor)" (Chinese: 炎黃子孫 or 炎黄子孙).
Terms and etymology
The name Han comes from the Han Dynasty, which succeeded the short-lived Qin Dynasty that united China. The word Han is also the name of a river in central China (Han River), near which the founders of the Han dynasty were once based. Han, as a word in ancient China, especially in classical literary Chinese, can also mean the Milky Way, or as people in ancient China call it, the "Heavenly River" (天河 Tian He).
Prior to the Han Dynasty, the Chinese was referred as "Huaxia people" (華夏族), citing ancient text description of China proper as an area of magnificent prosperity and culture. The Han Dynasty was considered as a high point in Chinese civilization, in that it was able to expand its power and influence over Central and Northeast Asia, and come to rival the Roman Empire in population, territory, wealth, and power.[citation needed] As a result of Han Dynasty's might, the Chinese often addressed themselves as "people of Han" (漢人), a name that was since carried down.