The Chaozhou Han or Chaozhou People

The Chaozhou Han or Chaozhou people (commonly known as Teochew Nang) are Han people who are native to the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province of China and speak the Teochew dialect. The Teochew diaspora can be found almost anywhere in the world, especially Southeast Asia, North America, Australasia and France. The diaspora, at least estimated, contains over 10 million people, which is as much as the population of Chaoshan itself. They speak a language closely related to Hokkien, and their Teochew cuisine is distinctive. The ancestors of the Teochew people moved to present-day Chaoshan from the Central Plains of China in order to escape from a series of civil wars during the Jin Dynasty.Teochew Nang(潮州人)Historically, these people were called Helao or Fulao, as they came mostly from Henan and Shanxi via Fujian, with well-maintained language and customs from north-central China. As was recorded in pedigrees and ancient inscriptions, these people who had originally migrated to southern Fujian, especially from Quanzhou and Putian, made settlements toward Chaoshan in batches and soon spread all over the Chaoshan area. Geographic isolation and difficulty in traveling in the past made the Helao or Fulao become a relatively closed population. Recently, studies of genetic analysis supported that although all Han Chinese are indeed related and share a common root, the Teochew had closest links with the Minnan area of Fujian province and those from the Taihang Mountain range of north-central China.They are known to Cantonese speakers as "Hoklo", which means “men from the Hok province i.e. Fujian province”, although the term “Teochew” is applied to them in the Strait Settlements(British Malaya) in the 19th century and early 20th century. "Teochew" is derived from Teochew Prefecture (Chaozhou Fu, 潮州府) the departmental city where they originate. In Mandarin, it should be Chaozhou(潮州).In ancient times, all the 8 counties (Chaoan 潮安、Chenghai 澄海、Chaoyang 潮阳、Jieyang