It is an ethnic minority group in China. With a population of 191,911 in 2020, the Xibe people are mainly distributed in Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Jilin provinces, as well as in Xinjiang Uygur and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions. The Xibe people living in northeast China speak Chinese. Those residing in Xinjiang speak the Xibe language, which belongs to the Manchu branch of the Manchu-Tungus language group of the Altaic family of languages. Besides, they also speak Chinese, Uygur, and Kazak and use the Xibe script. The earliest ancestors of the Xibe people lived in the Greater Khingan Mountains. They later moved to the middle and lower reaches of the Nenjiang River. In the 17th century, this group of people, conquered by the Manchus, merged into the Eight Banners. Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty moved over 3,000 Xibe officers and soldiers, along with their relatives, to Xinjiang and stationed them south of the Ili River in 1764, the 29th year of his reign. Since then, the Xibe people have been divided into two groups: one living in northeast China and the other in northwest. Xibe is how the ethnic group calls themselves. They identify themselves as descendants of the Xianbei people.