dǎng 党

### Migration and Distribution (Information lacking) The Dang surname is not included among the top 100 surnames in the mainland of China and Taiwan. The Dang surname originated from the Ji surname. During the Spring and Autumn Period, a high - ranking official in the State of Jin was enfeoffed in Shangdang. Some of his descendants took the place name as their surname, becoming one of the origins of the Dang surname today. Another branch of the Dang surname also originated in the Spring and Autumn Period. At that time, a high - ranking official in the State of Lu was enfeoffed in Dang, and his descendants also took the fief name as their surname, becoming another origin of the Dang surname. Among the ancient Qiang ethnic group in the northwest, there were people with the surname Dangxiang. Later, they intermarried with the Han people, learned Han culture, and adopted the Han custom of single - character surnames, thus changing to the Dang surname. It is also said that among the ancient Xianbei people in the north, there were those who took Dang as their surname, which later became a source of the Han Dang surname. In the late Ming Dynasty, the Dang family migrated from Quwo County, Shanxi to Beiliu. Now, after about twenty generations, around two thousand people are scattered in various villages such as Liangbo, Xiaojia, and Fulai. The Nanfeng Shrine was built in Xinfeng, the Xin'an Hall in Zhonghe, the Caitang Shrine in Lidong, and the Nanshan Shrine in Nanlu. During the Guangxu period, when there was a famine in Shaanxi, the descendants of the Nanshan branch donated a large amount of money from the surplus of the sacrificial funds. The county magistrate Liang Liuzao presented an inscribed board to praise their benevolence in helping the disaster - stricken areas. In modern times, the Dang surname is distributed all over the country, with relatively concentrated populations in Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Yunnan and other places. Among them, Dangjia Village in Hancheng, Shaanxi, shines brightly in the corner of the Qin and Shaanxi regions. In recent years, it has gained a reputation as a "treasure of folk dwellings". In ancient times, the people here built magnificent mansions and fortified watchtowers, guarding their family heritage and wealth. Today, their descendants repair the walls and welcome tourists, still adhering to the ancestral houses and the fading ancient customs. In the second year of Zhishun in the Yuan Dynasty (1331), Dang Shuxuan, the ancestor of the Dang family, fled from Chaoyi County, Shaanxi to this place due to famine and settled down to farm. More than a hundred years later, during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, Jia Botong, the ancestor of the Jia family, moved from Hongtong County, Shanxi to Hancheng to do business. The fifth - generation offspring of the Jia family intermarried with the Dang family, and their son settled in Dangjia Village in the fourth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1525), becoming the second - largest surname in the village. Up to now, Dangjia Village is still composed of the Dang and Jia families, with very few outsiders. The Dang family originally made a living by farming, while the Jia family had a tradition of doing business. During the Qianlong period, the Jia family founded the "Hexingfa" commercial firm, dealing in daily necessities, timber, porcelain, tea, medicinal materials, etc., and made a fortune in the border area between Henan and Hubei, becoming wealthy merchants. Driven by the Jia family, the Dang family also joined the business circle. From the Daoguang to the Xianfeng period (1796 - 1861), it was the golden age of Dangjia Village's business. It was said that mules and horses carrying silver to the hometown were in an endless stream, with a claim of "earning a thousand taels of silver a day". At the same time, Dangjia Village started a large - scale construction spree that lasted for a hundred years. At its peak, hundreds of quadrangle courtyards were built in Dangjia Village, along with the Biyang Fort and dozens of watchtowers, ancestral halls and temples. During the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, there were continuous wars. The villagers who knew how to handle the situation stopped doing business and returned to their hometowns to guard their ancestral wealth and engage in both farming and reading. After that, Dangjia Village declined. In the 1960s and 1970s of the last century, a considerable number of halls, watchtowers and stages were demolished. It was not until the mid - 1980s that, promoted by Mr. Aoki Masao of the Architectural Institute of Japan, China and Japan jointly organized a large - scale investigation of Dangjia Village, which stopped the process of demolishing the old houses, and these treasures of folk dwellings were preserved. In recent years, Dangjia Village has been named a "historical and cultural conservation village" and included in the "International Research Project on Traditional Folk Dwellings". In June 2001, it was designated as a national key cultural relic protection unit, allowing the villagers to continue to live in their ancestral homes. So far, there are 320 households and about 1,400 people in Dangjia Village, and the village has a history of more than 670 years. (The rest is omitted)