The Bouyei (also Buyi) people, with a population of 2,545,059 (by 1990), are mAInly scattered in the Bouyei and Miao autonomous prefectures in south Guizhou and Anshun. Some live in the Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture in southeastern Guizhou and around Guiyang while there is also a sparse distribution in the Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi and other provinces.   

The Bouyei people have their own language, which belongs to the Zhuang-Dai branch of the Zhuang-Dong Austronesian of the Chinese-Tibetan Phylum. In the past, the Bouyeis had no written language of their own, and used Han characters instead. After 1949, the government helped formulate a Bouyei writing system based on the Latin alphabet.