The majority of Chinas population is the Han. Till now, China has officially identified, except for other unknown ethnic groups and foreigners with Chinese citizenship, 55 ethnic minorities. Ethnic minorities vary widely in size in China. With a population of more than 15 million, the Zhuang have been the largest minority group, and the Lhoba, with only 2 thousand or more, the smallest. Chinas ethnic diversity has resulted in a special socioeconomic landscape of China itself. The book sets out to collect and estimate a full set of data on the socioeconomic situations of Chinas ethnic minorities.

Till present, a complete socioeconomic picture of Chinas ethnic groups still remains unclear from Chinas official sources. How different have been Chinas ethnic minorities in every sphere of daily life and economic development during Chinas fast transition period? In order to answer these questions, we need a detailed and comparable set of data for each of Chinas ethnic minorities.

This book provides, in an easy to use format, a broad collection of data on Chinas 55 ethnic minorities. It is a resource book that profiles the demography, employment and wages, peoples livelihood, agriculture, industry, education, science and technology, and culture, sports and public health for each of these ethnic minorities. These indicators, estimated on the author based on materials gathered from a variety of sources and clearly presented in one volume, will be of great value to researchers, businesses, government agencies, and news media.