A journey into the Guangxi area of China. Separated from the centre of China and the Yangtze River basin by the Nan Mountains, Guangxi has always been distinct from the rest of China. Guangxi and Guilin are home to 12 different ethnic minorities besides the Han Chinese. Guangxi is an autonomous region for the Zhuang ethnic group, rather than a province. The Chinese government has grouped Miao people and other non-Miao peoples together as one group, whose members may not necessarily be either linguistically or culturally related, though the majority are members of Miao-Yao language family, which includes the Hmong, Hmub, Xong, and A-Hmao and the majority do share cultural similarities.