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Which Han Chinese subgroups are connected with Mandarin, Wu, Gan, Yue, Min, Hakka, and Xiang?
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Chinese languages
Oracle bone inscriptions from the village of Xiaotun, Henan province, China; Shang dynasty, 14th or 12th century bce.
The Han Chinese population is often categorized into subgroups that correlate with the major dialects of the Chinese language. These subgroups are identified as follows:
- Mandarin: Speakers of the Mandarin dialect reside throughout northern and western China.1
- Wuyue: This group speaks the Wu dialect and is located in the Yangtze River basin, including Shanghai and parts of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui provinces.1
- Gan: The Gan-speaking peoples are primarily centered in Jiangxi and parts of Anhui.1
- Yue: The Yue, or Cantonese-speaking peoples, are concentrated in the Pearl River basin, including Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, and Macau.1
- Min: The Min-speaking peoples live mainly in Fujian and Hainan provinces.1
- Hakka: The Hakka-speaking peoples are found primarily in southern Jiangxi, southwestern Fujian, and northeast Guangdong.1
- Xiang: The Xiang-speaking peoples live primarily in Hunan and southwestern Hubei provinces.12