Brief Introduction of Salar Ethnic Group

The Sala nationality is one of the minor nationalities in China. Its present population is over 80,000. They mainly distribute in Xunhua autonomous county of Sala nationality and Hualong autonomous nationality of Hui nationality in Qinghai province, Jishishan autonomous county of Bao’an, Dongxiang and Sala nationalities and other places.

The Sala nationality calls themselves as “Salar”, and “Sala” for short. It formed by the long-term merging of the people that moved east to Xunhua region from Samarkand in the middle part of Asia in the 13th century with the surrounding Han, Hui, Mongolian and other nationalities. In history, there ever were the translated names of “Sala”, “Salar” and “Shala”, etc. After the founding of new China, it was formally named as “Sala nationality”. 

The Sala nationality has its own language, and the Sala language belongs to Tujue language group, A’ertai language system. It is divided into two local language: Jiezi and Mengda, and uses many words of Chinese. 

The economy of the Sala nationality mainly depends on agriculture, and takes forestry and animal husbandry as subsidiary. The gardening industry is very developed, most of the families have orchards of different sizes, rich in pears, apricots, grapes, Chinese dates, walnuts and other melons and fruits, the Xunhua region has always been enjoying the good fame of “the country of melons and fruits”, and the egg shell walnuts are especially famous.

The Sala nationality believes in Islam and belongs to Sunnite, which has the division of “old religion” and “new religion”. Their literature and arts are abundant and colorful.