The population is about 1.463 million. The majority live in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Mulei Kazakh Autonomous County and Barkun Kazakhstan Autonomous County in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. A few of them live in Aksay Kazakh Autonomous County of Gansu Province. The people use the Kazakh language, which belongs to the western Xiong branch of the Turkic languages in the Altaic language family with two kinds of dialects, the southwest and the northeast. The Kazakh script is a kind of phonogram formed in the second half of the 19th century. It went through two reforms by the Soviet Union, and was revised by China in 1954. The writing system is based on Arabic alphabets. In the Kazakh folklore, “kazakh” means “white swan”. Some others interpret it as “warrior”, “free man”, “refugee” and “the separated’. Except a few engaged in agricultural production, most of the Kazakh people depend on animal husbandry, spending their entire life on picturesque prairies. The Kazakh people mainly believe in Islam. Their major festivals include “Eid al-Adha”, “Eid al-Fitr” and “Nowruz”. “Nowruz” is a traditional festival of the Kazakh ethnic group. On that day, the people give blessings to each other just like during the Spring Festival of the Han people. It is a time for sending off the old and welcoming the new.