The Pumi people, numbering 33,600 by 2000, are one of China's officially recognized minority groups. In 1960 the government combined various tribes and labeled them Pumi. Prior to that, each tribe called themselves by a different name. The Pumi people today call themselves a name which means "white men."

Distribution:

The Pumi people are concentrated in the Yunnan Province counties of Lanping, Lijiang, Weixi and Yongsheng, as well as in the Yi Autonomous County of Ninglang. Some live in Sichuan Province, in the Tibetan Autonomous County of Muli and Yanyuan county. They reside on rugged mountains as high as 2,600 meters above sea level, cut by deep ravines.

Language:

The Pumi people speak a language belonging to the Tibetan-Myanmese language family of the Chinese-Tibetan system. Although Pumi in the Muli and Ninglang areas once wrote with Tibetan characters, this was mainly for religious purposes. Gradually the Tibetan characters fell into oblivion, and most Pumi people now use Chinese.