They are one of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in China and reside in the mountainous southwest and south of the country.

According to a Yao tale, the Chinese Emperor Gao Xin was saved from an enemy chieftain by his faithful dog, Pan Hu.

This tale was used as a basis for their connection to the Mo Yao, a group of highlanders who were exempt from forced labour during the Tang dynasty (618-907).

[2] Between 200 BCE and 900 CE, the Yao migrated into mountainous areas to the south of the Yangtze River.

Ming and Qing authorities sent in their own bureaucrats to directly collect taxes, supplanting the role of the Yao chieftains.

[7] After the Mao Zedong's Communist Party won the civil war in the late 1940s, the Yao benefited greatly from the ideology of equality and were able to access education, becoming part of the regional and national elite.

They were often recruited as specialists to assist with the ethnic identification program within the framework of a large unified China.

[8] This relationship caused the new communist Laotian government to target Yao tribal groups once the war was over.

Most of the Yao who have immigrated to the United States have settled along the Western part of the US, mainly in central and northern California such as Visalia, Oakland, Oroville, Redding, Richmond, Sacramento, but also in parts of Oregon like Portland, Salem, and Beaverton as well as the state of Washington in Seattle and Renton.

[10] The Yao people have been farmers for over a thousand years, mostly rice cultivation through plowing, although a few practice slash-and-burn agriculture.

[9] During the Southern Song (1127–1279), an imperial Chinese observer, Zhou Qufei, described the Yao as wearing distinctive fine blue clothing produced using indigo.

The Yao had shaman priests as part of their community who engaged in activity such as exorcism, spiritual communication, and divination using chicken bones or bamboo sticks.

[29] Yao peoples are distributed primarily in the provinces Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan of China.

The writing system was finalized in 1984 in Ruyuan County (乳源瑤族自治縣), Guangdong, which included Chinese professors Pan Chengqian (盤承乾/盘承乾), Deng Fanggui (鄧方貴/邓方贵), Liu Baoyuan (劉保元/刘保元), Su Defu (蘇德富/苏德富) and Yauz Mengh Borngh; Chinese government officials; Mien Americans Sengfo Chao (Zhao Fuming), Kao Chiem Chao (Zhao Youcai), and Chua Meng Chao; David T. Lee.

American linguist Herbert C. Purnell developed a curriculum and workshop presentations on language learning in East and Southeast Asia, as well as Yao Seng Deng from Thailand.

Some people think that a variety of Yao is, or was, written in Nüshu, an indigenous script in Southern part of Hunan Province in China.