Population movements in Qing China and their linguistic legacy

Three changes during the Qing (1644-1911) fundamentally altered China’s linguistic map. First, population tripled from 150 to 500 million people. Second, land area doubled from 5 to 10 million square kilometers. Third, tens of millions of Chinese migrated within China Proper and from China Proper to Greater China. The purpose of this paper is to summarize briefly the major flows of migration during the Qing and then to assess their implication for the study of the languages and dialects of China. In part one we describe large-scale migrations throughout China. In part two we focus on migrations to one city, the national capital at Beijing.