Han Chinese

The Han Chinese or Han people are an East Asian ethnic group native to 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 of China (including Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau), numbering 1.4 billion across the world, and making up 90% of the total population in Mainland China. They have had the most significant influence in shaping the development and growth of Chinese civilization. In Taiwan, they make up about 97% of the population. People of Han Chinese descent also make up around 75% of the total population of Singapore. 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, 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 settled 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. In many overseas Chinese communities, the term Hua people (华人; 華人; Huárén) or Huazu (华族; 華族; Huázú) is applied solely to people 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 heartland in the Yellow River Basin, 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 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."