Origin of the Chinese

It's amazing that so few people have asked this question to date, "Where do the Chinese come from?", since it has the world's largest population and presents a seemingly homogeneous front.

As a matter of fact, the dominate ethnic group in China is the Han, which to most people are, and for the rest of this article will be synonymous with Chinese.

Where do the Han really come from? Was it one racially pure people that proliferated in isolation or did outside genetics contribute? To answer these questions, let start from the beginning, before there were Hans. The name Han identifies people of the Han Empire, which ruled from present day Korea to Vietnam, from the East China Sea to the Tarim Desert, lasted some 400 years from 206 BCE to 220 CE.

The origin story of the Chinese goes way back into history or pre-history. 3000 years before the Han dynasty, when what we call China today was inhabited by various tribes, the mythical ancestors of the Han, the Huaxia, controlled swathes of land centered around the Yellow River. According to legend, the leader of the Huaxia, Huangdi, defeated the 4 surrounding tribes, to the North, South, East, and West of Huaxia and incorporated their people and territory. The 4 leaders of those tribes, along with Huangdi became known as the 5 Emperors. Legends also tell of Huangdi defeating and assimilate the tribe of Yandi. Together, Huangdi and Yandi have been viewed as the progenitors of the Han race, which refers to itself as 'descendants of yan and huang'. Also, '3 sovereigns and 5 emperors' are also viewed by the Han as the founding dynasty of China. From the very beginning, the Chinese people have been mingling with other races. Though these stories have little substantial evidence, it shows at the very least that the Han have had no claims to racial purity from its inception.

The next 3 thousand years saw increased warfare, migrations, and assimilation and only at the end of the era of the Warring States did a unified cultural identity emerge from the 7 main states that spanned most of China. The assimilation was consolidated by the unification of China and some 500 years of centralized government and peace.

But the amalgamation was not done, as barbarians will soon contribute their gene pool. See Origin of the Chinese Part 2.