Han Chinese

• Hàn Chinese

"Han" is from Mandarin 漢 / 汉 (Hàn). See Han for more historical information.

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Han Chinese (not comparable)

1. Referring to the largest ethnic group native to China.
   • 2007 April, Julie Grundvig, “TAIWAN”, in The Asia Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the Continent‎^[1], →ISBN, →OCLC, page 103, column 2:

     About 98 per cent of Taiwan's inhabitants are Han Chinese, a diverse mix of ethnic and linguistic groups, including Hakka, Cantonese and Fujianese, who came from China's southern coast. Taiwan's other two per cent are from one of the nine indigenous tribes, which are scattered throughout the island but largely concentrated along the east coast and in the Central Mountain Range.

Han Chinese (plural Han Chinese)

1. (countable, chiefly in the plural) A member of the largest ethnic group native to China.
   • 2007, Marcus W. Feldman, Shripad Tuljapurkar, Shuzhuo Li, Xiaoyi Jin, Nan Li, “Son Preference, Marriage, and Intergenerational Transfer in Rural China”, in Anne H. Gauthier, C.Y. Cyrus Chu, Shripad Tuljapurkar, editors, Allocating Public and Private Resources across Generations: Riding the Age Waves‎^[2], volume 2, Springer, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 144:

     Lueyang county is a mountainous county located in the Qing mountains in the far south of Shaanxi province, far from Xi'an, on the borders of Sichuan and Gansu provinces. It has a relatively small population—about 200,000. Before the Tang dynasty, Lueyang was occupied mostly by minority Chinese, who were defeated by the Han Chinese, and most were forced to migrate to other places.

   • 2016, Reggie Hanlon, Tragedy on a Light-Year Scale:

     I think it would be better to leave the position of sect leader to Junior Brother Guangxia. He is a Han Chinese and the orphan of the great hero Li Wencheng.

   • 2020, Albert Riley, The Life and Journeys of a Dabizi:

     I might also say that my tour guide was a Han Chinese and not originally from Xinjiang.

As with other terms for people formed with -ese, the countable singular noun in reference to a person (as in "I am a Han Chinese", "writing about Han Chinese cuisine as a Han Chinese") is now uncommon and often taken as grammatically incorrect. In its place, the adjective is used, by itself (as in "I am Han Chinese") or before a noun like person, man, or woman ("writing about Han Chinese cuisine as a Han Chinese person"). See also -ish, which is similarly only primarily used as an adjective or as a plural noun.