Tanka People (Boat People), China - The Floating Homes

Have you ever imagined a house that is floating on the water? Probably not, but there is a settlement in the world which is located on the water and it has a population of 7000 people. This is the only one floating settlement in the world, which is located in China. The people of this community are called Tankas or Tanka People. They are also called as Boat people. Tanka people are an ethnic subgroup in Southern China who have traditionally lived on junks in coastal parts of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan, and Zhejiang, as well as Hong Kong, and Macau. This community is related to sea fishermen, who are called Tankas. Many centuries ago in China, the people of the Tanka community became so angry with the persecution of the rulers there that they decided to stay on the sea. Though many now live onshore, some from the older generations still live on their boats and pursue their traditional livelihood of fishing. They were sometimes referred to as "sea gypsies" by the Chinese and British. Tankas were considered to be outcasts. In this area, about 7,000 fishermen's families are living in their traditional boats house. These homes are floating on the sea. 

There is an entire settlement of these quaint houses. The floating fishermen's village is located in Ningde City in southeast China’s Fujian province. Their living habits date back to the Tang Dynasty, around 700AD, when fishermen in east Fujian settled on their boats to avoid the chaos caused by war. Since then they were called gypsies of the sea and they rarely come to the ground. Everything from weddings to funeral ceremonies were instead held on the boats. The whole life of the people of the Tanka tribe passes around water and the fishes. Before the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, the ‘gypsies of the sea’ were not allowed to go ashore or marry the people living along the beach. After getting the encouragement of the local government in recent times, some people of the Tanka group have started making houses along the shoreline, but most people prefer to live in their traditional floating houses.