There are altogether 2,134,013 Yao people in China, mainly distributed over Guangxi, Hunan, Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, Jiangxi, etc. provinces and autonomous regions.

        The ancestors of the Yao people ever lived along the Changjiang River Valley in the history. Early in the periods of the Qin (221 – 206 B.C.) and the Han (206 B.C. – A. D. 220) Dynasties, the Yao people belonged to part of Wuling (or Wuxi) Nationality in Changsha. After they migrated southwards, some of them moved into the Southwest mountain areas, thus forming the distribution layout of scattering in large areas and concentration in small areas.

        The populated areas of the Yao people mostly in the subtropical zone, with an elevation ranging from 1000m to 2000m. The villages are located around here and there, with lovely sceneries of green bamboo forests and trees. The Yao people, owing to their characteristics in different modes of production, housing, dresses and personal adornments, have several names called by themselves and by other people, e.g., Pan-Yao, Chashan-Yao, Shanzi-Yao, Ao-Yao, Hualan-Yao, Baiku-Yao, Hongtou-Yao, etc., altogether up to over 20 branches or clans. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, they have been called by a joint name of Yao.

        The Yao language belongs to the Yao language, Miao-Yao branch of the Sino-Tibetan Language Family. Owing to the long-term contacts maintained with the Han, Zhuang, Miao, etc. peoples, the Yao people in various areas can generally understand the Chinese language, some of them understand the Zhuang or the Miao languages.

        Limited by the residential domain, most of the Yao people still continue to have their primitive hunting, fishing and farming culture, their exquisite Yao brocade and Yao clothes, their old legends, their folk songs pleasant to the ears, their beautiful dances, their unique marriage customs and religious belief.

        For the three meals every day of the Yao people, they are generally two times of cooked rice and one time of rice gruel; in the busy farming season, they may have cooked rice for three meals. In the past, the Yao people liked to put some food in the cooked rice: corns, millets, sweet potatoes, tapiocas, taros, fresh kidney beans, etc.. They cook food with “stewing” or “roasting” methods, e.g., stewing sweet potatoes, stewing bitter bamboo shoots, roasting tender corns, roasting glutinous rice cakes, etc.. The Yao people in the mountain areas have the habit to eat cold snacks. While they work outside in the fields, the Yao people have snacks on the site. They crowd together, take out their cooked dishes they bring for common dishes, yet they have their staple food of their own.

        The edible vegetables of the Yao people are generally various kinds of melon vegetables, beans, green vegetables, turnips, hot peppers, also bamboo shoots, mushroom, edible tree fungi, fiddlehead, the Chinese mahogany, day lily, etc.. The areas where the Yao people live abound with various fruits. The vegetables should often be dried or pickled. Some Yao people in Yunnan like to make light dishes of the vegetables. They cook the vegetables in the water only plus some salt; or after they cook the vegetables in the water, they eat with some paprika plus some salt, so as to keep the primary flavor of the vegetables. Meat often processed into bacons. Some Yao people in Guangxi often like to cook meat with stir-fried or stewed methods, seasoned with some salt, rarely with other condiments. In case meat should be cooked into delicious dishes, fresh meat or bacon should be baked or roasted first, then cooked.

        The Yao people are fond of eating various pupae, e.g., pupa in pine tree, pupa in Kudzu vine, pupa of honeybees, etc.. The Yao people also like to process cane sugar, sweet potato sugar, honey, etc. by themselves with their special mountain products.

        The Yao people are mostly fond of drinking, two or three times per day. They make wine themselves at home with (glutinous) rice, corn, sweet potatoes, etc.. Some Yao people in Yunnan like to drink sweet wine made out of fermented glutinous rice. When they go out, they bring with them the sweet wine in the bamboo tube, and they add
some water in it when drinking.

        The Yao people in Guangxi are fond of decocting tea with cassia, ginger, etc.. They think such kind of tea effective for refreshing themselves and clear away physical fatigue. The Yao people in many areas in Guangxi are fond of processing Youcha (a kind of drinking). They not only drink it by themselves every day, but also use it to entertain guests with it.

        The Yao people that live in compact communities in the Dayao Mountain in Guangxi, limited by the residential domain, basically continue to have the traditional customs in weddings. “Marriage by capture” or “Daocamen” (the bridegroom is married to the bride's) is popular in some areas.

        The Yao people, owing to their characteristics in different styles of housing, dresses and personal adornments, had several names called by themselves and by other people, e.g., Guoshan-Yao, Hongtou-Yao, Daban-Yao, Pingtou-Yao, Landing-Yao, Sha-Yao, Baiku-Yao, etc.. The Yao people continue to keep their traditional characteristics of their own in their social customs and folk ways, especially obvious in their headgears and clothes. The Yao women are good at embroideries. They embroider delicate ornamental designs and patterns on the pieces of the upper garment (with buttons on the right or in the front), cuffs of the sleeve, edging of the bottom of trousers legs. Women's hair in a bun or a chignon or in fine queues coils on their heads, with color fine pearls on their heads. Men are fond of wearing their hair long and in a bun or coil a chignon on their heads, wrapped with red or black cloth. They wear long sleeves clothing of a kind of Chinese-style jackets with buttons down the front, obliquely wearing a white cloth “Kanjian (Waist Coat)” on the shoulder; wearing long trousers with long trousers legs. Young boys and girls of the Yao people should change their bright-color caps to turbans at the age of 15 – 16, marking their growth mature of their bodies.