Internal migration in the People's Republic of China refers primarily to migrants in China without local household registration status through the Chinese Hukou system. According to the International Labour Organization, it is one of the most extensive in the world due to the fact that migrants are commonly members of a floating population. In general, rural-urban migrants are mostly excluded from local educational resources, citywide social welfare programs and many jobs due to their lack of Hukou status. Migrant workers are not necessarily rural workers; they are simply people living in urban areas with rural household registration. China's government influences the pattern of urbanization through the Hukou permanent residence registration system, land-sale policies, infrastructure investment and the incentives offered to local government officials. The other factors influencing migration of people from rural provincial areas to large cities are more employment, education, business opportunities, and higher standard of living.
In 2015, the number of (migrant workers) was 277.5 million—36% of the total Chinese workforce of 770 million. Out of these, migrant workers who left their hometown and worked in other provinces accounted for 158.63 million (an increase of 3.4% compared to 2010) and migrant workers who worked within their home provinces reached 94.15 million (an increase of 5.9% compared to 2010).National Bureau of Statistics of China (2012): "Statistical Communiqué on the 2011 National Economic and Social Development", http://www.stats.gov.cn/was40/gjtjj_en_detail.jsp?searchword=migrants&channelid=9528&record=3. (accessed 06.08.2012). (beneath figure 3) The balance of gender for migrant workers was two-thirds male to one-third female in 2015. Estimations are that Chinese cities will face an influx of another 243 million migrants by 2025, taking the urban population up to nearly 1 billion people. This population of migrants would represent "almost 40 percent of the total urban population," a number which is almost three times the current level. While it is often difficult to collect accurate statistical data on migrant floating populations, the number of migrants is undoubtedly quite large. "In China's largest cities, for instance, it is often quoted that at least one out of every five persons is a migrant."
History and origins
Zhou dynasty
During the Zhou dynasty in ancient China, migration shaped the demographic and cultural landscape. Internal migration occurred as a result of the feudal system implemented by the Zhou rulers, which divided the territory into various states, each governed by its own noble or lord. People often migrated within the realm in search of economic opportunities, safety, or to escape unfavorable conditions. Nomadic threats from groups like the Di and Qiang during the Western Zhou period also led to internal movements as communities sought refuge from these incursions. Additionally, the establishment of trade routes, including the Silk Road, facilitated both internal and external migration, fostering cultural exchange and diversity. As the dynasty expanded territorially, conquests and military campaigns likely prompted the movement of people to newly acquired lands. The migration patterns during the Zhou dynasty contributed to the cultural diversity within China and influenced regional customs and traditions that persisted throughout its long history.
Qing dynasty From 1644 to 1912, the Qing dynasty was China's last imperial dynasty. The founder for Qing dynasty were the Manchu people, an ethnic group from Manchuria (modern-day northeastern China).
Manchuria In 1668 during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, the Qing government decreed a prohibition of non-Eight Banner people entering Manchuria (including modern-day Manchuria in northeast China and Outer Manchuria) where the ruling Manchus came from. Ethnic Han people were banned from settling in this region but the rule was openly violated and Han became a majority population in urban areas by the early 19th century.
However Qing rule saw a massively increasing number of Han people both illegally and legally streaming into Manchuria and settling down to cultivate land as Manchu landlords desired Han peasants to rent on their land and grow grain. Most Han migrants were not evicted as they went over the Great Wall and Willow Palisade. During the 18th century Han people farmed 500,000 hectares of privately owned land in Manchuria and 203,583 hectares of lands which were part of courtier stations, noble estates, and Banner lands, in garrisons and towns. Ethnic Han made up 80% of the population.Richards 2003, p. 141.
Han farmers were resettled from northern China by the Qing to the area along the Liao River in order to restore the land to cultivation.Reardon-Anderson 2000, p. 504. Wasteland was reclaimed by Han squatters in addition to other Han who rented land from Manchu landlords.Reardon-Anderson 2000, p. 505. Despite officially prohibiting Han settlement on regions populated by Manchu and Mongol peoples, by the 18th century the Qing decided to settle Han refugees from northern China who were suffering from famine, floods, and drought in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. The Han people farmed 500,000 hectares in Manchuria and tens of thousands of hectares in Inner Mongolia by the 1780s.Reardon-Anderson 2000, p. 506. The Qianlong Emperor allowed Han peasants suffering from drought to move into Manchuria despite him issuing edicts in favor of banning them from 1740 to 1776.Scharping 1998, p. 18. Han tenant farmers rented or even claimed title to land from the "imperial estates" and Manchu bannerlands in the area.Reardon-Anderson 2000, p. 507. Besides moving into the Liao area in southern Manchuria, the path linking Jinzhou, Fengtian, Tieling, Changchun, Hulun, and Ningguta was settled by Han people during the Qianlong Emperor's reign, and Han became the majority in urban areas of Manchuria by 1800.Reardon-Anderson 2000, p. 508. To increase the Imperial Treasury's revenue, the Qing sold formerly Manchu-only lands along the Sungari to Han people at the beginning of the Daoguang Emperor's reign, and Han filled up most of Manchuria's towns by the 1840s according to Abbe Huc.Reardon-Anderson 2000, p. 509.
Mongolia and Inner Mongolia Ethnic Han were officially forbidden to settle in Outer Mongolia (modern Mongolia) and Inner Mongolia. Mongols were forbidden from crossing into the 18 provinces () populated by the Han people without permission and were given punishments if they did. Mongols were also forbidden from crossing into another Mongol leagues. Han settlers violated the rule and crossed into and settled in Inner Mongolia.
Despite officially prohibiting Han settlement on Manchu and Mongol lands, by the 18th century the Qing decided to settle Han refugees from northern China who were suffering from famine, floods, and drought into Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. Han people farmed 500,000 hectares in Manchuria and tens of thousands of hectares in Inner Mongolia by the 1780s.
Ordinary Mongols were not allowed to travel outside their own leagues. Mongols were forbidden by the Qing from crossing the borders of their banners, even into other Mongol Banners and from crossing into the 18 provinces of the Han people and were given serious punishments if they did in order to keep the Mongols divided against each other to benefit the Qing.Bulag 2012, p. 41.
During the eighteenth century, growing numbers of Han settlers had illegally begun to move into the Inner Mongolian steppe. By 1791 there had been so many Han Chinese settlers in the Front Gorlos Banner that the yasak had petitioned the Qing government to legalize the status of the peasants who had already settled there.
Xinjiang
The Qing implemented two different policies for Dzungaria (Northern Xinjiang) and the Tarim Basin (Altishahr, Southern Xinjiang). The Manchus had wiped out the native Buddhist Oirat Dzungars in their land of Dzungaria. Then the Qing implemented a large scale settlement in Dzungaria to colonize the newly empty grasslands. Han people were encouraged by the Qing to permanently settle and colonize Dzungaria while permanent Han settlers were banned from the Tarim with only Han merchants allowed. The ban was lifted in the 1820s after the invasion of Jahangir Khoja and the Han people were allowed to permanently settle in the Tarim.
Hans were around one third of Xinjiang's population in 1800, during the time of the Qing dynasty. Professor of Chinese and Central Asian History at Georgetown University, James A. Millward wrote that foreigners often mistakenly think that Urumqi was originally a Uyghur city and that the Chinese destroyed its Uyghur character and culture, however, Ürümqi was founded as a Chinese city by Han and Hui (Tungans), and it is the Uyghurs who are new to the city.Millward 1998, p. 133.Millward 1998, p. 134. While a few people try to give a misportrayal of the historical Qing situation in light of the contemporary situation in Xinjiang with Han migration, and claim that the Qing settlements and state farms were an anti-Uyghur plot to replace them in their land, Professor James A. Millward pointed out that the Qing agricultural colonies in reality had nothing to do with Uyghur and their land, since the Qing banned settlement of Han in the Uyghur Tarim Basin and in fact directed the Han settlers instead to settle in the non-Uyghur Dzungaria and the new city of Ürümqi, so that the state farms which were settled with 155,000 Han from 1760 to 1830 were all in Dzungaria and Ürümqi, where there was only an insignificant number of Uyghurs, instead of the Tarim Basin oases.Millward 2007, p. 104.
At the start of the 19th century, 40 years after the Qing reconquest, there were around 155,000 Han and Hui peoples in northern Xinjiang and somewhat more than twice that number of Uyghurs in southern Xinjiang.Millward, James A. (2007). Eurasian crossroads: A history of Xinjiang. . p. 306 A census of Xinjiang under Qing rule in the early 19th century tabulated ethnic shares of the population as 30% Han and 60% Turkic, while it dramatically shifted to 6% Han and 75% Uyghur in the 1953 census, however a situation similar to the Qing era-demographics with a large number of Han has been restored as of 2000 with 40.57% Han and 45.21% Uyghur. Professor Stanley W. Toops noted that today's demographic situation is similar to that of the early Qing period in Xinjiang. In northern Xinjiang, the Qing brought in Han, Hui, Uyghur, Xibe, and Kazakh colonists after they exterminated the Zunghar Oirat Mongols in the region, with one third of Xinjiang's total population consisting of Hui and Han in the northern are, while around two thirds were Uyghurs in southern Xinjiang's Tarim Basin.ed. Starr 2004, p. 243.
Ürümqi was settled with troops while Green Standard troops and Altishari Turkic peoples settled in Ili after being ordered to by Qianlong in 1757.https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/761498/Gregory_georgetown_0076D_13086.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y p. 492. Ürümqi was used as a place for exiles.https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/761498/Gregory_georgetown_0076D_13086.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y pp. 382, 330.
The genocide victim Dzungars were the natives of northern Xinjiang. Han, Manchu, and Southern Xinjiang's Turkic Taranchi Muslims were all colonizers in Northern Xinjiang (Dzungaria). Han soldiers of the Green Standard Army were settled in the 1770s in Ili and Ürümqi by the Qing.
Ürümqi had very little Uyghurs while it had many Hui and Han in 1787. There were 76,496 Uyghurs and 477,321 Han in 1960 Ürümqi.
Tibet The Qing stationed both Manchu bannermen and ethnic Han soldiers of the Green Standard Army in Tibet. A community descended from Han soldiers and officials grew in Lhasa.