According to the 2021 China Statistical Yearbook, the total population of the She was 746,385, including 403,516 males and 342,869 females. The She are the largest ethnic minority in Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi provinces. They are also present in the provinces of Anhui and Guangdong. Some descendants of the She also exist amongst the Hakka community in Taiwan.[citation needed]
Shanke dialect should not be confused with She (Ho Ne). Shanke (Shānkèhuà) and Ho Ne (Shēyǔ) speakers have separate histories and identities, although both are officially classified by the Chinese government as She people. The Dongjia of Majiang County, Guizhou are also officially classified as She people, but speak a Western Hmongic language closely related to Chong'anjiang Miao (重安江苗语).
History
Some scholars believe that the birthplace of the She ethnic group may be Phoenix Mountain (凤凰山) in the north of Chao'an District, Chaozhou. The She people are some of the earliest known settlers of Guangdong;[citation needed] they are thought to have originally settled along the shallow shore for easier fishing access during the Neolithic era. Eventually, after an influx of Yue people moved south during the Warring States period, serious competition between the two peoples for resources developed.[citation needed]
From the time of the Qin dynasty on, waves of migrants from northern China have had a serious impact on the She people. Because they possessed superior tools and technology, these migrants were able to displace the She and occupy the better land for farming. As a result of this, some of the She were forced to relocate into the hilly areas of the Jiangxi and Fujian provinces.
Following this relocation, the She people became hillside farmers. Their methods of farming included burning grasses on the slope, casting rice seeds on those embers and then harvesting the produce following the growth season. Some of the She people also participated in the production and trade of salt, obtained from the evaporation of local pools of salt water.
Many conflicts took place between the Han Chinese and She peoples. For example, in one incident, She salt producers on Lantau Island in Hong Kong attacked the city of Canton in a revolt during the Song dynasty.
During the Ming-Qing dynasties they moved into and settled Zhejiang's southern region and mountain districts in the Lower Yangtze region, after they left their homeland in Northern Fujian. It is theorized that the She were pushed out of their land by the Hakka, which caused them to move into Zhejiang.
Autonomous counties and ethnic townships in China
Zhejiang
She ethnic county, townships and towns in Zhejiang
Gelao people (仡佬) (right) and She people 畲族 (left) depicted on a mural in Niu Jie (Cow Street) of Beijing.
The roughly 45,000 She living in Guizhou province form a separate subgroup, the Dongjia (东家人; Dōngjiā Rén), who differ notably in culture from the She in other areas.
Provincial level
In the Census of 2020, 746,385 She have been counted in China.
↑賴維凱 (2015). "客畲基本詞源自南方例證─兼論「客」、「畲」族稱的來源"(PDF). 客家研究. 8 (2): 48. Archived from the original(PDF) on 17 June 2026. 這種情況跟畲族十分類似，畲族本來自稱「山哈」、「山達」或「山客」，而「畲」則是他稱，這種他稱的解釋在學界有兩種說法：其一、根據此一民族耕作的特性—「刀耕火種」所取的，然而有學者不以為然，認為全中國甚至世界上住在山上的民族幾乎都是用此種方式耕作的，為何只有他們被稱為「畲」，於是乎，就有了另一番解釋：其二、「畲」為「山哈」連讀（或急讀）所形成的音，前面已略有論述。
↑Zhao, Yu (2024). "Study on the Digital Inheritance and Preservation of Chinese She Ethnic Minority's Costumes"(PDF). Trends in Textile Engineering & Fashion Technology. 9 (5). doi:10.31031/TTEFT.2024.09.000723. ISSN2578-0271. Archived from the original on 6 April 2024. She Ethnic Minority is a long-standing minority group residing mainly in the mountainous regions of Fujian and Zhejiang in southeastern China, with distributed populations in Jiangxi, Guangdong, Anhui, Hunan, Guizhou, and other areas. They refer to themselves as "Shanke" or "Shanha", while Han document presenting various names for them, such as "Nanman", "Baiyue", "dongliao" and "Sheyao".
↑Susan Naquin, Evelyn Sakakida Rawski (1989). Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (reprint, illustrateded.). Yale University Press. p.169. ISBN0-300-04602-2. Retrieved 2011-10-30. Both the She and the Tanka were quite assimilated into Han Chinese culture. The She had migrated north in the late Ming and Qing from the hills of northern Fujian into southern Zhejiang; some even moved into the Lower Yangtze mountain districts farther north.
↑Est. 2008, Jinping is home to eight minority nations, living in 19 designated villages (村, cun). The township as a whole cannot be said to be expressly for the She. In all, Jiangxi Province has 56 She villages in non-She townships.
China (Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Anhui)
