bái 白

### Migration and Distribution The Bai surname originated from the areas of present-day Shaanxi and Henan. During the Warring States period, the Bai clan in Henan (the branch of Bai Gongsheng) migrated to Shaanxi and other places. It is recorded that the son of Bai Gongsheng first moved to the State of Qin and thrived in present-day Shaanxi. In the Qin Dynasty, after Emperor Shi Huang unified the country, he enfeoffed Bai Zhong, the son of Bai Qi, in Taiyuan, Shanxi. Since then, Bai Zhong's descendants have lived in Taiyuan for generations. During the Wei, Jin, and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Bai Zhong's descendants established the Taiyuan Prefecture as their prominent clan base. Subsequently, some of them migrated to Hancheng and Weinan in Shaanxi, some to Xiangyang in Hubei, and some to Luoyang in Henan, all of whom developed prosperously in these places. After the Sui Dynasty, the Bai clan absorbed more new members (as noted in "Tracing the Origins"), which made the Bai family more prosperous and extensive. In the Tang Dynasty, Bai Wen, a descendant of Bai Zhong, moved to Xiagui, Huazhou (northeast of present-day Weinan, Shaanxi). Bai Huang lived in Zhengzhou (in present-day Henan). Bai Huang's grandson was Bai Juyi, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, who lived in the Fragrant Hill in Luoyang (in present-day Henan) in his later years. He became the ancestor of the Bai clan who moved to Luoyang, and his descendants branched out across Henan, which was quite magnificent. In the Five Dynasties period, the Bai clan moved to the ancient Nanyang area and later thrived there, becoming a prominent local clan and using "Nanyang" as their prefectural and clan hall title. During the Song and Yuan periods, to avoid the south - moving Jin and Mongol armies, many Bai clan members migrated to the southern regions. However, overall, the Bai clan still mainly lived in the northern areas. In the Ming Dynasty, as one of the surnames of the immigrants from Hongtong Big Pagoda Tree in Shanxi, the Bai clan migrated to Shandong, Hebei, Henan, Shaanxi, Beijing, Tianjin and other places. Since the early Qing Dynasty, the Bai clan from Fujian and Guangdong have successively moved to Taiwan and then emigrated overseas. Today, the Bai clan has a relatively large population in provinces such as Sichuan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Henan. The Bai population in these four provinces accounts for about 65% of the total Han Bai population in the country. The Bai surname ranks as the 73rd most common surname in China today, with a relatively large population, accounting for about 0.29% of the total Han population in the country.