Yao people

Yao people

A Yao woman, Tiantouzhai, Longji Terraces, China, November 2010
Total population
(3,100,000)
Regions with significant populations
China  Vietnam  Laos  Thailand
Languages
Mienic languages, Bunu, Pa-Hng, Lakkja, Mandarin Chinese, Shaozhou Tuhua, Vietnamese
Religion
Predominantly Yao folk religion, minority Buddhism

The Yao people (its majority branch is also known as Mien; simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: Yáo zú; Vietnamese: người Dao) is a government classification for various minorities in China and Vietnam. They are one of the 55 officially recognised ethnic minorities in China and reside in the mountainous terrain of the southwest and south. They also form one of the 54 ethnic groups officially recognised by Vietnam. In the last census in 2000, they numbered 2,637,421 in China and roughly 470,000 in Vietnam.

The origins of the Yao can be traced back 2000 years starting in Hunan. The Yao and Hmong were among the rebels during the Miao Rebellions against the Ming dynasty. As the Han Chinese expanded into South China, the Yao retreated into the highlands between Hunan and Guizhou to the north and Guangdong and Guangxi to the south, and stretching into eastern Yunnan. Around 1890, the Guangdong government started taking action against Yao in northwestern Guangdong.

The first Chinese exonym for "Yao people" was the graphic pejorative yao (犭"dog radical" and yao 䍃 phonetic) "jackal", which twentieth-century language reforms changed twice; first with the invented character yao (亻"human radical") "the Yao", and then with yao (玉 "jade radical") "precious jade; green jasper".