Chinese people in Kazakhstan

The number of Chinese people in Kazakhstan varies through the centuries. There have been various migrations of ethnic minorities from China to Kazakhstan in the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as that of the Dungan people (Hui) fleeing Qing Dynasty forces after a failed 1862–1877 rebellion in Northwest China or the Uyghur and Kazakh exodus from Xinjiang during the 1950s Great Leap Forward; however, their descendants do not consider themselves to be "Chinese people".^[2][3] The modern wave of migration from China only dates back to the early 1990s.^[4]

As a result of centuries-old migrations from China, distinct ethnic diasporas emerged in Kazakhstan: Uyghurs – 276,449 people (2015), Dungans (Hui) – 98,577 people (2019) and Han Chinese – 189,762 people (2021).^[5] The Han Chinese is a highly urbanized ethnic group: 97% live in the cities, predominantly in Almaty, Astana and Karaganda and is well educated: 87.2% of Han have higher (university) and vocational education.^[6]