The Luo minority live in a small pocket of south east Yunnan Province in South West China in a mountainous area bordering Vietnam and Guangxi Province. The Luo people are only found in two villages of about seventy families with a total population of approximately 500. The Luo minority have a history dating back some 4000 years but today this smallest of all China's minority groups is under threat of vanishing altogether.

　　Chairman Mao in the 1950's assimilated the small numbers of the Luo with the larger Yi minority group but the fiercely independent Luo refused to accept this. The Luo, arguably the poorest of all China's minority hill tribes, have always enjoyed a unique culture, customs and style of clothing