Zhou dynasty During the
Zhou dynasty in ancient China, migration shaped the demographic and cultural landscape. Internal migration occurred as a result of the feudal system implemented by the Zhou rulers, which divided the territory into various states, each governed by its own noble or lord. People often migrated within the realm in search of economic opportunities, safety, or to escape unfavorable conditions. Nomadic threats from groups like the Di and Qiang during the Western Zhou period also led to internal movements as communities sought refuge from these incursions. Additionally, the establishment of trade routes, including the Silk Road, facilitated both internal and external migration, fostering cultural exchange and diversity. As the dynasty expanded territorially, conquests and military campaigns likely prompted the movement of people to newly acquired lands. The migration patterns during the Zhou dynasty contributed to the cultural diversity within China and influenced regional customs and traditions that persisted throughout its long history.
Qing dynasty From 1644 to 1912, the Qing dynasty was China's last
imperial dynasty. The founder for Qing dynasty were the Manchu people, an ethnic group from Manchuria (modern-day northeastern China).
Manchuria In 1668 during the reign of the
Kangxi Emperor, the Qing government decreed a prohibition of non-
Eight Banner people entering
Manchuria (including modern-day
Manchuria in northeast China and
Outer Manchuria) where the ruling
Manchus came from. Ethnic Han people were banned from settling in this region but the rule was openly violated and Han became a majority population in urban areas by the early 19th century. However Qing rule saw a massively increasing number of Han people both illegally and legally streaming into Manchuria and settling down to cultivate land as Manchu landlords desired Han peasants to rent on their land and grow grain. Most Han migrants were not evicted as they went over the
Great Wall and
Willow Palisade. During the 18th century Han people farmed 500,000 hectares of privately owned land in Manchuria and 203,583 hectares of lands which were part of courtier stations, noble estates, and Banner lands, in garrisons and towns. Ethnic Han made up 80% of the population. Han farmers were resettled from northern China by the Qing to the area along the Liao River in order to restore the land to cultivation. Wasteland was reclaimed by Han squatters in addition to other Han who rented land from Manchu landlords. Despite officially prohibiting Han settlement on regions populated by Manchu and Mongol peoples, by the 18th century the Qing decided to settle Han refugees from northern China who were suffering from famine, floods, and drought in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. The Han people farmed 500,000 hectares in Manchuria and tens of thousands of hectares in Inner Mongolia by the 1780s. The
Qianlong Emperor allowed Han peasants suffering from drought to move into Manchuria despite him issuing edicts in favor of banning them from 1740 to 1776. Han tenant farmers rented or even claimed title to land from the "imperial estates" and Manchu bannerlands in the area. Besides moving into the Liao area in southern Manchuria, the path linking
Jinzhou,
Fengtian,
Tieling,
Changchun,
Hulun, and
Ningguta was settled by Han people during the Qianlong Emperor's reign, and Han became the majority in urban areas of Manchuria by 1800. To increase the Imperial Treasury's revenue, the Qing sold formerly Manchu-only lands along the Sungari to Han people at the beginning of the
Daoguang Emperor's reign, and Han filled up most of Manchuria's towns by the 1840s according to Abbe Huc.
Mongolia and Inner Mongolia Ethnic Han were officially forbidden to settle in
Outer Mongolia (modern
Mongolia) and
Inner Mongolia. Mongols were forbidden from crossing into the
18 provinces () populated by the Han people without permission and were given punishments if they did. Mongols were also forbidden from crossing into another Mongol leagues. Han settlers violated the rule and crossed into and settled in Inner Mongolia. Despite officially prohibiting Han settlement on Manchu and Mongol lands, by the 18th century the Qing decided to settle Han refugees from northern China who were suffering from famine, floods, and drought into Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. Han people farmed 500,000 hectares in Manchuria and tens of thousands of hectares in Inner Mongolia by the 1780s. Ordinary Mongols were not allowed to travel outside their own leagues. Mongols were forbidden by the Qing from crossing the borders of their banners, even into other Mongol Banners and from crossing into the 18 provinces of the Han people and were given serious punishments if they did in order to keep the Mongols divided against each other to benefit the Qing. During the eighteenth century, growing numbers of Han settlers had illegally begun to move into the Inner Mongolian steppe. By 1791 there had been so many Han Chinese settlers in the
Front Gorlos Banner that the
yasak had petitioned the Qing government to legalize the status of the peasants who had already settled there.
Xinjiang The Qing implemented two different policies for
Dzungaria (Northern Xinjiang) and the
Tarim Basin (
Altishahr, Southern Xinjiang). The Manchus had wiped out the native Buddhist
Oirat Dzungars in their land of Dzungaria. Then the Qing implemented a large scale settlement in Dzungaria to colonize the newly empty grasslands. Han people were encouraged by the Qing to permanently settle and colonize Dzungaria while permanent Han settlers were banned from the Tarim with only Han merchants allowed. The ban was lifted in the 1820s after the invasion of
Jahangir Khoja and the Han people were allowed to permanently settle in the Tarim. Hans were around one third of Xinjiang's population in 1800, during the time of the Qing dynasty. Professor of Chinese and Central Asian History at
Georgetown University, James A. Millward wrote that foreigners often mistakenly think that
Urumqi was originally a
Uyghur city and that the Chinese destroyed its Uyghur character and culture, however, Ürümqi was founded as a Chinese city by Han and
Hui (Tungans), and it is the Uyghurs who are new to the city. While a few people try to give a misportrayal of the historical Qing situation in light of the contemporary situation in Xinjiang with Han migration, and claim that the Qing settlements and state farms were an anti-Uyghur plot to replace them in their land, Professor James A. Millward pointed out that the Qing agricultural colonies in reality had nothing to do with Uyghur and their land, since the Qing banned settlement of Han in the Uyghur Tarim Basin and in fact directed the Han settlers instead to settle in the non-Uyghur Dzungaria and the new city of Ürümqi, so that the state farms which were settled with 155,000 Han from 1760 to 1830 were all in Dzungaria and Ürümqi, where there was only an insignificant number of Uyghurs, instead of the Tarim Basin oases. At the start of the 19th century, 40 years after the Qing reconquest, there were around 155,000 Han and Hui peoples in northern Xinjiang and somewhat more than twice that number of Uyghurs in southern Xinjiang. A census of Xinjiang under Qing rule in the early 19th century tabulated ethnic shares of the population as 30% Han and 60%
Turkic, while it dramatically shifted to 6% Han and 75% Uyghur in the 1953 census, however a situation similar to the Qing era-demographics with a large number of Han has been restored as of 2000 with 40.57% Han and 45.21% Uyghur. Professor Stanley W. Toops noted that today's demographic situation is similar to that of the early Qing period in Xinjiang. In northern Xinjiang, the Qing brought in Han, Hui, Uyghur,
Xibe, and
Kazakh colonists after they
exterminated the Zunghar Oirat Mongols in the region, with one third of Xinjiang's total population consisting of Hui and Han in the northern are, while around two thirds were Uyghurs in southern Xinjiang's Tarim Basin. Ürümqi was settled with troops while Green Standard troops and Altishari Turkic peoples settled in Ili after being ordered to by Qianlong in 1757. Ürümqi was used as a place for exiles. The genocide victim Dzungars were the natives of northern Xinjiang. Han, Manchu, and Southern Xinjiang's Turkic
Taranchi Muslims were all colonizers in Northern Xinjiang (Dzungaria). Han soldiers of the
Green Standard Army were settled in the 1770s in Ili and Ürümqi by the Qing. Ürümqi had very little Uyghurs while it had many Hui and Han in 1787. There were 76,496 Uyghurs and 477,321 Han in 1960 Ürümqi.
Tibet The Qing stationed both Manchu bannermen and ethnic Han soldiers of the
Green Standard Army in Tibet. A community descended from Han soldiers and officials grew in Lhasa. At multiple places such as Lhasa, Batang, Dartsendo, Lhari, Chamdo, and Litang, Green Standard troops were garrisoned throughout the Dzungar war. Green Standard Army troops and Manchu bannermen were both part of the Qing military force who fought in Tibet in the war against the Dzungars. It was said that the Sichuan commander Yue Zhongqi entered Lhasa first when the 2,000 Green Standard soldiers and 1,000 Manchu soldiers of the "Sichuan route" seized Lhasa. According to Mark C. Elliott, after 1728 the Qing used
Green Standard Army troops to man the garrison in Lhasa rather than
Bannermen. According to Evelyn S. Rawski both Green Standard Army and Bannermen made up the Qing garrison in Tibet. According to Sabine Dabringhaus, Green Standard Chinese soldiers numbering more than 1,300 were stationed by the Qing in Tibet to support the 3,000 strong Tibetan army. In the mid 19th century, arriving with an Amban, a community of Han troops from Sichuan who married Tibetan women settled down in the Lubu neighborhood of Lhasa, where their descendants established a community and assimilated into Tibetan culture. Hebalin was the location of where Chinese Muslim troops and their offspring lived, resulting in the
Hebalin Khache community, while Lubu was the place where Han troops and their offspring lived.
Sichuan and Guizhou Migration to Sichuan and Guizhou happened during the Qing dynasty as a continuation of migration that started in the
Yuan dynasty. That is why most people in Sichuan who speak a Han dialect speak Mandarin, while regions at the same latitude such as Guangdong, have their own dialects. Many people from areas such as Hunan moved there in search of space. They consisted of various ethnicities ranging from Han, Hui and Mongol to Yao and Miao. Many cultures already existed in Sichuan, such as the Yi, and some of the emigrants integrated into these ethnic backgrounds, even to the point of forgetting the Han language. During the Qing dynasty, people started defining themselves as locals or immigrants and there was static between the two groups.
People's Republic of China The unique
hukou system of China (emulating from
Soviet model) distinguishes Chinese internal migration from migration in other developing countries. In 1958, China established the universal hukou system that restricted the mobility of the population. It aimed to tie farmers to land, secure agricultural supply as well as to support industrial sector in cities after the
Great Leap Forward and
Great Chinese Famine which caused at least 30 million deaths. In addition to Hukou system, the
people's commune system was another tool to control labor mobility. Under the
people's commune system, the earnings of farmers were closely related to their daily participation in the
collective farming. In 1978, during the
reform and opening up, this system was replaced by the
household-responsibility system, which loosened the restriction of people's mobility. In the middle 1980s, labor migration from rural to urban areas became a national phenomenon. Huang and Pieke divide the migration policy evolution after the reform and opening up into four periods. The first period is from 1979 to 1983, during which the government still prohibited migration. The second period is from 1984 to 1988 when farmers were allowed to enter urban areas on the condition that they provided their own food. The third period is from 1989 to 1991 when migration became much more popular and had attracted much attention from the government. The fourth period is from 1992 to 2000, during which the government in some degree encouraged migration, while urban local governments controlled migration more strictly because of high unemployment rates in cities. From 1949 to 1985, the
net migration rate for China was 0.24, compared with world average of 1.84 from 1950 to 1990. The founding of
China's special economic zones prompted migration to the SEZs from across southern and southwest China and workers, particularly younger women, could earn significantly more for factory work in SEZs than they could earn in their hometowns. The
1994 fiscal reform also impacted patterns of migration and
urbanization in China. Under the pre-1994 system of fiscal contracting,
township and village enterprises (TVEs) had been an important mechanism of industrialization and most peasants who sought a factory job chose to stay in their hometowns and work at TVEs. In 2000, the Chinese government began encouraging westward migration as part of an effort to increase development in China's western and minority regions with a reallocation of technological, human, and financial resources. In 2006 it was estimated that China was experiencing a –0.39 per 1,000 population net migration rate. According to National Bureau of Statistics, there were 252.78 million migrant workers in China in 2011. == Occupational profile==