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China is a united multi-ethnic country with 56 ethic groups: the Hans, the Mongolians, the Huis, the Tibetans, the Uygurs, the Miaos, the Yis, the Zhuangs, the Bouyeis, the Koreans, the Manchus, the Dongs, the Yaos, the Bais, the Tujias, the Hanis, the Kazaks, the Lis, the Dais, the Lisus, the Vas, the Shes, the Gaoshans, the Lahus, the Shuis, the Dongxiangs, the Naxis, the Jingpos, the Kirgizs, the Tus, the Daurs, the Mulaos, the Qiangs, the Blangs, the Salars, the Maonans, the Gelaos, the Xibes, the Achangs, the Pumis, the Tajiks, the Nus, the Ozbeks, the Russians, the Ewenkis, the De'angs, the Baoans, the Yugurs, the Jings, the Tatars, the Drungs, the Oroqens, the Hezhes, the Moinbas, the Lhobas, the Jinos. Of all the 56 ethnic groups, the Hans have the biggest population, making up 91.59% of the total population, which is also the ethnic group with the largest population in the world. The population of the other 55 minorities occupies a comparatively small proportion; therefore, they are called minorities. Of the minorities, the Zhuangs have the largest population with more than 13 million people and the Lhobas the smallest with only over 2000 people. Though these minorities possess a small population, they are distributed over a wide area and their inhabitant scope covers 64% of the nation. The minorities are mainly scattered over the northeast, northwest and southwest inland provinces and regions and southeast coastal areas, thus taking on a certain form of concentrated living. A large number of the Hans also inhabit in the communities where the minorities live, such as in the concentrated communities of Guangxi, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. The Han still dominates the population of these areas, thus all the nationalities are characterized by living in a large mixed community with small concentrated communities. The areas that the minorities inhabit are generally sparsely populated mountain areas, highlands pastoral areas and remote areas. They are comparatively poorer in geographic terms but richer in natural resources and also they hold an important strategic position. The minorities too contribute a lot to the Chinese nation. Since the foundation of P R.C, the system of the autonomy of ethnic minority regions has been implemented into the minority concentrated communities. The central government gives positive support to the autonomous regions financially and materially. A new type of relationship has been built up among all the ethnic groups, that is, equality and mutual help, consolidation and cooperation, and mutual prosperity. The economy and culture in the minority-populated areas has developed dramatically and its population growth rate also exceeds the Hans. However, due to the impact of history and geographic environment, considerable discrepancies still exist in the economic and cultural development level of all ethnic groups.
Of the 55 minorities, except for the Huis and the Manchus, which also using Chinese, 53 use their own native languages; 21 nationalities have characters with 27 sorts of languages. The languages of minorities used can be generally categorized into 5 phyla except for the unascertained language of the Jings: the languages of 29 minorities including the Zhuangs, the Dais, the Zangs, the Yis, the Miaos and the Yiaos belong to Sino-Tibetan Family, the languages of 17 minorities including the Ugurs, the Kazaks, the Mongolians, the Koreans belong to the Altaic Family and the languages of the Vas, the De’angs and the Blangs to the Austroasiatic Family, the Tajiks and the Russians to the Indo-European Family, the Gaoshans to the Austrone Sian Family. Now, the schools that mainly recruit minority ethic group students have adopted textbooks written in their native languages and are taught in their native languages too.
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