The Manchu people (Manchu: Manjui gisun.svg Manju; simplified Chinese: 满族; traditional Chinese: 滿族; pinyin: Mǎnzú, Mongolian: Манж, Russian: Маньчжуры
are a Tungusic people who originated in Manchuria (today's northeastern China). During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels (such as general Wu Sangui), they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which established a republican government in its place.
The Manchu ethnicity has largely been assimilated with the Han Chinese. The Manchu language is almost extinct, now spoken only among a small number of elderly people in remote rural areas of northeastern China and a few scholars; there are around ten thousand speakers of Sibe (Xibo), a Manchu dialect spoken in the Ili region of Xinjiang. In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in Manchu culture among both ethnic Manchus and Han.[citation needed] The number of Chinese today with some Manchu ancestry is quite large - with 10.68 million members (in China), Manchu is the 3rd largest ethnic group in China after the Han and the Zhuang.[4] The adoption of favorable policies towards ethnic minorities (such as preferential university admission, government employment opportunities and exemption from the one child policy) has encouraged some people with mixed Han and Manchu ancestry to re-identify themselves as Manchu.