It is an ethnic minority group in China. The Miao people primarily reside in the provinces of Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hubei, Guangdong, and Hainan and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. There are large Miao communities in southeast Guizhou and in the areas where Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Guizhou intersect. They mainly congregate in west Hunan. As of 2020, the Miao population in China was 11,067,929. The people speak the Miao language, which belongs to the Miao branch of the Miao-Yao group of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. In areas where they live together with other ethnic groups, the Miao people also speak Chinese, Dong, Zhuang, and other languages. In the early 20th century, foreign missionaries created a phonetic alphabet that the Miao people used for a brief time. In 1956, four different written Miao scripts based on the Latin alphabet were created or adapted from existing scripts. The Miao people are closely related to the ancient Jiuli (Nine Li) people, Three Miao people, and "Nanman" (southern barbarians) people. During the Tang and Song dynasties, these people were called Miao, and the Miao communities settled into their current locations during the Ming and Qing dynasties.