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25 million Zhous come from 2 sources
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THE family of Zhou stars in Chinese history as a family adept with both the pen and the sword, thanks to two distinguished historic figures — Zhou Yafu and Zhou Dunyi.
There are an estimated 25 million people surnamed Zhou in China, ranking it ninth and accounting for nearly 2 percent of the Chinese population.
There are generally two major sources of Zhou as a family name. The older branch originated with the tribe named Zhou in the Yellow Emperor’s reign about 4,600 years ago. Zhou Shu and Zhou Chang were two of the most well-known ministers at the time.
Another major source came from the ancient family of Ji. A man named Danfu from the Ji family in the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) led and relocated his tribe in Zhouyuan of today’s Shaanxi Province, so as to escape the enemy’s attack. The people have been known as the Zhou tribe ever since, and later the Zhou Dynasty (1046—256 BC).
There were also people getting Zhou surname for different reasons. A man named Cheng Na was granted the surname of Zhou in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907).
The family of Zhou originated in the Weihe Plain in Shaanxi Province and gradually expanded to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and today’s Jiangsu and Anhui provinces in the early Zhou Dynasty.
The continuous wars during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (AD 907-960) triggered a mass migration of the Chinese people including the Zhou family. A large number of Zhous in Henan and Shandong provinces moved southward, reaching Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces. Today, Hunan is the province with the most people surnamed Zhou.
Zhou Yafu, a general in the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC- AD 24) and Zhou Dunyi, a Neo-Confucianist in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) highlighted the family of Zhou’s contribution in both military and philosophy.
Zhou Dunyi as a scholar and philosopher initiated the “li xue” (Neo-Confucianism), which was a rationalistic revival of Confucianism in the 11th century that influenced Chinese thought for 800 years.
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