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The Han Chinese or Han people are an East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. They are the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 17.5% of the global population. The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group in China—including mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau—with a global population of over 1.4 billion. They have had the greatest influence on the development and growth of Chinese civilization. In Taiwan, Han Taiwanese make up about 97% of the population. People of Han Chinese descent also make up around 75% of Singaporean residents. The term "Han" not only refers to a specific ethnic collective, but also represents an identity belonging to a distinctive people denoted with a particular set of behavioral attributes, cultural traits, genetic markers, historical background, and societal characteristics which has exerted a significant formative influence in shaping the development and growth of Chinese civilization. Originating from Northern China, the Han Chinese trace their ancestry to the Huaxia, a confederation of agricultural tribes that lived along the Yellow River. They had their origins along the Central Plains around the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in Northern China. These confederation of tribes were the ancestors of the modern Han Chinese people as well as the progenitors of Chinese civilization. The term "Huaxia" was used by the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius's contemporaries, during the Warring States era, to elucidate the shared ethnicity of all Chinese; Chinese people called themselves Hua Ren. Within the course of the Warring States period led to the emergence of the early discernible consciousness of the Zhou-era Chinese referring to themselves as being Huaxia (literally, "the beautiful grandeur"), which was distinctively used to adumbrate a "civilized" culture in contrast to what were perceived as "barbaric" towards the adjacent and adjoining vicinities bordering the Zhou Kingdoms that were inhabited by different non-Han Chinese peoples around them. People of Han Chinese ancestry who possess foreign citizenship of a different country are commonly referred as Hua people (华人; 華人; Huárén) or Huazu (华族; 華族; Huázú). The two respective aforementioned terms are applied solely to those with a Han ethnic background that is semantically distinct from Zhongguo Ren (中国人; 中國人) which has connotations and implications limited to being citizens and nationals of China, especially with regards to people of non-Han Chinese ethnicity. The Huaxia tribes in Northern China continuously expanded into Southern China over the past two millennia, via military conquests and colonisation. Huaxia culture spread southward from its northern heartland in the Yellow River Basin into the south, absorbing various non-Han ethnic groups that became sinicised over the centuries at various points in Chinese history. The name "Han people" first appeared during the era of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and was inspired by the Han dynasty, which is considered to be one of the first golden ages in Chinese history. As a unified and cohesive empire, Han China emerged as the center of East Asian geopolitical influence at the time, projecting much of its hegemony onto its East Asian neighbours and was comparable with the contemporary Roman Empire in population size, geographical and cultural reach. The Han dynasty's prestige and prominence influenced many of the ancient Huaxia to identify themselves as "The People of Han." To this day, the Han Chinese have since taken their ethnic name from this dynasty and the Chinese script is referred to as "Han characters." Names The name Han was derived from the name of the eponymous dynasty, which succeeded the short-lived Qin dynasty and is historically considered to be the first golden age of China's Imperial era due to the geopolitical power and influence it projected over much of East Asia. As a result of the dynasty's prominence in inter-ethnic and pre-modern international influence on Chinese civilization, the Chinese of the post-Qin era identified themselves as the "people of Han" (漢人; 汉人; Hànrén), a name that has been carried down to this day. Similarly, the Chinese language also came to be named and alluded to as the "Han language" (漢語; 汉语; Hànyǔ) ever since. On Oxford Dictionaries, the Han are defined as "The dominant ethnic group in China". In the Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania, the Han are called the dominant population in "China, as well as in Taiwan and Singapore." According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the Han are "the Chinese peoples especially as distinguished from non-Chinese (such as Mongolian) elements in the population". The Han dynasty's founding emperor, Liu Bang, was made king of the Hanzhong region after the fall of the Qin dynasty, a title that was later shortened to "the King of Han" (漢王; 汉王) during the Chu–Han Contention. The name "Hanzhong", in turn, was derived from the Han River, which flows through the region's plains. Prior to the Han dynasty, ancient Chinese scholars used the term Huaxia (華夏; 华夏; Huá Xià) in texts to describe China proper, while the Chinese populace were referred to as either the "various Hua" (諸華; 诸华, Zhūhuá) or the "various Xia" (诸夏; 諸夏, Zhūxià). This gave rise to a term commonly used nowadays by Overseas Chinese as an ethnic identity for the Chinese diaspora – Huaren (華人; 华人; Huá Rén, "ethnic Chinese people"), Huaqiao (华侨; 華僑; Huáqiáo, "the Chinese immigrant" meaning Overseas Chinese) as well as a literary name for China – Zhonghua (中華; 中华; Zhōnghuá, "Central China"). Zhonghua refers more to Chinese culture, although it may also be seen as equivalent to Zhonghua minzu. Some Overseas Chinese communities use Huaren or Huaqiao instead of Zhongguoren (中國人; 中国人), which has limited connotations and implications that are applied solely to those with ethnic Han ancestry while "Chinese" or Zhongguo Ren (中國人; 中国人) refers to any Chinese citizen and national regardless of their ethnic origins, due to their differing political views about the state. Among some southern Han Chinese varieties such as Cantonese, Hakka and Minnan, a different term exists – Tang Chinese (Chinese: 唐人; pinyin: Táng Rén, literally "the people of Tang"), derived from the later Tang dynasty, regarded as another golden age and high point in Chinese civilization. The term is used in everyday colloquial discourse and is also an element in one of the words for Chinatown: "street of the Tang people" (Chinese: 唐人街; pinyin: Táng Rén Jiē; Jyutping: tong4 jan4 gaai1). The phrase Huá Bù, 華埠; 华埠 is also used to denote the same area. Subgroups Across China's vast geographical expanse, the Han Chinese can be divided into various subgroups based on their respective cultural, ethnic, genetic, linguistic, and regional features. The historical migrations that have occurred throughout China's vast geographical expanse over the last three millennia has engendered the evolution, emerge.... Discover the Wu Cheng En Julia Lovell popular books. 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