The population is about 326 thousand. The Naxi people mainly reside in Lijiang City and the surrounding areas in Yunnan Province, and are also distributed in Yanyuan, Yanbian, Muli and other counties in Sichuan Province and Markham County in Tibet. The Naxi people use the Naxi language which belongs to the Yi branch of Tibeto-Burman languages of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Due to the close interaction with the Han people, most Naxi people can speak Chinese. In the past, the Naxi people had two kinds of scripts. One kind is ideographic hieroglyphs called Dongba, and the other is syllabaries called Geba. In 1957, the Naxi phonogram writing system based on the Latin alphabets was devised. The Naxi people are mainly engaged in agricultural production, growing rice, corns, potatoes, wheat, beans, cotton and linen. They mainly believe in the polytheistic "Dongba" religion. A few people believe in Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism or Christianity. The traditional festivals include the “First Month Farm Tool Fair”, the “Third Month Dragon King Temple Fair” (now the material exchange fair) and the “Seventh Month Mule and Horse Fair”. In addition, there are “Spring Festival”, “Ching Ming Festival”, “Dragon Boat Festival”, “Mid-Autumn Festival”, “Torch Festival”, etc.