What are the distinctive cultures in Sichuan?

Sichuan has the reputation of "Land of Abundance" with a long history. From ancient times to the present, many traditional cultures have been circulated, which has also brought a richer cultural atmosphere to the local people. How much do you know about Sichuan culture? The following article brings you the characteristic culture of Sichuan. Let's have a look.

Sichuan is a multi-ethnic area with 55 ethnic minorities and 4.908 million people. Yi, Tibetan, Qiang, Miao, Hui, Mongolian, Tujia, Yi, Manchu, Naxi, Buyi, Bai, Zhuang and Dai are ethnic minorities living in this province. Sichuan is the only Qiang inhabited area, the largest Yi inhabited area and the second largest Tibetan area in China.

Ethnic minorities mainly live in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and Muli Tibetan Autonomous County, Mabian Yi Autonomous County, Ebian Yi Autonomous County and Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County. Known as "the second Tibetan area in China", "the only Qiang nationality gathering area in China" and "the first Yi nationality gathering area in China".

Yi people are the largest minority in Sichuan, mainly living in Liangshan and Anning River basins. Yi people have their own language and calendar. June 24th of the lunar calendar is the biggest festival of the Yi people-Torch Festival. 95% of the Tibetan population uses Tibetan and Jiarong languages, and about 40% of them also speak Chinese. 95% of Yi people use Yi language, and about 60% of them are fluent in Chinese.

70% of the Qiang people use Qiang language, and 70% also speak Chinese. All the ethnic minorities living in the world, except Hui, use their own languages. More than 85% of the ancient town of Luodai is the descendant of Hakka people from Guangdong, Jiangxi and Fujian who poured in during the immigration tide of "Huguang filling Sichuan" in the early Qing Dynasty. They still completely follow Hakka customs and speak Hakka dialect, which is known as "the living fossil of ancient Chinese".

Sichuan is a big Hakka province in the west. Since the migration of "Huguang filling Sichuan" in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, the largest Hakka dialect island in Dongshan, Chengdu, with Longquanyi District as the core, has gradually formed, with a total of 500,000 Hakkas, which has well preserved the Hakka language family and life culture. In Sichuan, there are about 700,000 people who can speak Hakka at present.

Language and culture:

Sichuan dialect is the main Chinese language popular in Sichuan, Chongqing (Bashu area) and surrounding provinces, including the ancient Shu dialect in Southwest Mandarin. Sichuan dialect has about1200,000 users. Today's Sichuan dialect was formed in the great migration movement of "Huguang filling Sichuan" during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, and it was gradually evolved and merged from Sichuan dialect popular before the Ming Dynasty and immigrant dialects in Huguang, Guangdong and Jiangxi. Chengyu dialect is the standard pronunciation of Sichuan opera and various folk arts. At the same time, due to the high degree of internal interoperability of Sichuan dialect, communication between dialect areas is barrier-free.