The population is about 551 thousand. Gelao is an ancient ethnic group in the middle of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. Most of the Gelao people reside in the northwest, southwest and north of Guizhou Province and a few are distributed in the Longlin Various Nationalities Autonomous County of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province. The Gelao people use the Gelao language which belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, but the branch and language class remain undetermined. There are four dialects, which are Gao, Aou, Hagei and Duoruo. Because the Gelao live in scattered areas, Chinese has become their universal language. Many people are also capable of speaking the languages of Miao, Yi and Bouyei. They have no script of their own, but generally they use Chinese characters. The Gelao people are mainly engaged in agriculture, mainly in corn cultivation, followed by rice, wheat and potatoes. The Gelao people are polytheists and worship their ancestors. The "Spring Festival" is the biggest festival of the Gelao people in one year. From the first day to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, various entertainment activities are held. On the first day of the tenth lunar month, the "Ox King Festival" is held. At that time, two large glutinous rice cakes are hung on the horns of a cow. It is then brought to the water to let it see its own reflection. After that, the people feed it with the glutinous rice cakes.