Zhuang, largest ethnic minority of South China, chiefly occupying the Zhuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi (created 1958) and Wenshan in Yunnan province. They numbered some 16 million in the early 21st century. The Zhuang speak two closely related Tai dialects, one classified as Northern and the other as Central Tai, with Chinese as their second language.
The culture ancestral to that of modern Tai speakers, including the Zhuang, appears to have developed in the regions of Sichuan and the lower Yangtze River valley; its maximum geographic distribution occurred about 2,500 years ago, during the period of its earliest contact with Han Chinese culture. The advance of the empire controlled by the Han dynasty pushed the Tai-speaking peoples southward. Other cultural heirs of these early peoples include the Thai of Thailand, the Lao of Laos, the Shan of Myanmar (Burma), the Tai of Yunnan, and the Buyei of Guizhou. Of these, the Zhuang and Buyei have become the most assimilated into contemporary China’s predominantly Han culture.
The Zhuang have nevertheless retained several cultural characteristics that distinguish them from the Han. Most Zhuang prefer to settle on valley lands adjacent to streams, to cultivate wet rice with the use of buffalo or oxen, and to build their houses on pilings rather than on the ground. Most also allow young people to contract marriages without the intervention of middlemen; brides remain with their natal family from marriage until the birth of their first child, as that birth is regarded as the consummation of the marriage. Magical rites, sorcery with human figurines, and ancestor veneration are additional elements that distinguish Zhuang culture. In the late 20th century, customs associated with the use of bronze drums were revived as tourist attractions.