Hlai people
黎族 Li, Lizu | |
|---|---|
| Total population | |
| 1,602,104 (2020)[1][2] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Hainan, Guangdong and islands in the South China Sea | |
| Languages | |
| Hlai languages, Jiamao, Hainanese and Mandarin | |
| Religion | |
| Animism, Theravada Buddhism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Other Tai–Kadai peoples and populations from Mainland Southern China,[3] Utsuls |
| Hlai people | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese | 黎 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | [phonetic] | ||||||||
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| Alternative Chinese name | |||||||||
| Chinese | 黎族 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | Li Ethnicity | ||||||||
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The Hlai, also known as Li or Lizu, are a Kra–Dai-speaking ethnic group, one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. The vast majority live off the southern coast of China on Hainan Island,[4] where they are the largest minority ethnic group. Divided into the five branches of the Qi (Gei), Ha, Run (Zwn), Sai (Tai, Jiamao) and Meifu (Moifau),[5] the Hlai have their own distinctive culture and customs.
- ^ "Geographic Distribution and Population of Ethnic Minorities". China Statistical Yearbook 2021. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
- ^ "Ethnic composition of China 2020". pop-stat.mashke.org. Retrieved 8 July 2025.
- ^ Peng, Min-Sheng; He, Jun-Dong; Liu, Hai-Xin; Zhang, Ya-Ping (15 February 2011). "Tracing the legacy of the early Hainan Islanders – a perspective from mitochondrial DNA". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 11: 46. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-11-46. PMC 3048540. PMID 21324107.
- ^ Original from Indiana University Viscount James Bryce Bryce (1904). Hans Ferdinand Helmolt (ed.). The World's History: Oceania, Eastern Asia and the Indian Ocean. Vol. 2 of The World's History: A Survey of Man's Record. LONDON: William Heinemann. p. 60. Retrieved 20 December 2011.
extended as far as the Han River, and the Man lived on the central and upper Yangtsze, chiefly on the right bank. But the number of the tribes that had not then been subdued must have been much greater; even at the present day, more than two thousand six hundred years later, tribes of original inhabitants in complete or partial independence are constantly found in the southern and western provinces of the empire. That such tribes as the Hlai (Limin or Limu, probably descendants of the Miaotsze to whom Kublai Khan [Shi Tsu] is said to have assigned a part of Formosa in 1292) should have held their ground in the interior of Formosa and Hainan is the less remarkable, since even in the present day whole tribes of original inhabitants have been able to maintain their independence in the provinces on the mainland, where the Chinese supremacy has endured for hundreds or thousands of years.
- ^ "Chinese Nationalities (Li Minority)". Retrieved 18 February 2011.