The Hmong are a highland ethnic group of mainland Southeast Asia and southern China, organized traditionally around patrilineal clans and historically practicing swidden agriculture in the mountainous border regions of Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Yunnan province. Hmong communities in Laos were extensively recruited by the United States Central Intelligence Agency during the Vietnam War-era 'Secret War' in Laos, and the war's aftermath, including reprisals against Hmong who had fought with American forces, drove a large-scale refugee resettlement to the United States from the late 1970s onward, producing the substantial Hmong American community documented today, notably in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Facts
Group TypeSourced to the subject's own account Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own accountSoutheast Asia (Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, southern China) and a substantial diaspora, notably in the United States 1 Primary LanguageSourced to the subject's own accountHmong (Hmong Daw and Mong Leng dialect groups, among others) 1 Subsistence ModeSourced to the subject's own accountHistorically swidden (shifting) agriculture in the highlands of mainland Southeast Asia and southern China, including historical opium cultivation in some regions before state-led crop-substitution programs. 1 Disputed
Population Estimateestimated 4 to 5 million in Southeast Asia and southern China, plus a diaspora of several hundred thousand, concentrated in the United States 1 Sourced to the subject's own accountHmong populations are spread across several national censuses with differing ethnic classification methods, and diaspora totals shift with ongoing migration, so cited totals vary by source. Sources
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