英文介绍中国56个民族.doc

Chinese Ethnic Group China is a large country noted for its dense population and vast territory. There are 55 minority ethnic groups in addition to the Han who represent 92% of the population. The defining elements of an ethnic group are language, homeland, and social values. 53 minority ethnic groups use spoken languages of their own; 23 minority ethnic groups have their own written languages. Most of the 7 percent of the minority ethnic groups live in the vast areas of the West, Southwest and Northwest. The largest is the 12 million-strong Zhuang in southwestern China. Although minority ethnic groups account for about 7% of the population, they are distributed over some 50% of Chinese territory, mostly in the border regions. Equality, unity and common prosperity are the fundamental objectives of the government in handling the relations between minority ethnic groups. China exercises a policy of regional autonomy for various minority ethnic groups, allowing ethnic group peoples living in compact communities to establish self-government and direct their own affairs Han Chinese Han Chinese makes up 92 percent of the total population. According to the 1995 sample survey of 1 percent of Chinas population, there were 1.09932 billion Han people (an increase of 56.84 million since the Fourth National Population Census of 1990), accounting for 91.02 percent of Chinas total population. Han people are found in all parts of the country, but mainly in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River (Huanghe), Yangtze River (Changjiang), Pearl River (Zhujiang) and the Northeast Plain. The Han people are found in all parts of the country, but mainly in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River (Huanghe), the Yangtze River (Changjiang), and the Pearl River (Zhujiang) as well as the Songliao Plains. The Han nationality has its own spoken and written language, known as the Chinese language, which belongs to the Chinese-Tibetan language family. It is commonly used nowaday