There are about 100,000 Salar people in China. Most of them live in Qinghai and Gansu provinces.

The Salar people call themselves Salarer. Their ancestors are the Samarkand people who migrated from Central Asia to China during the Yuan Dynasty (1271AD-1368AD). They integrated to some degree with the peoples they found there, including Tibetans, Hui, Han, and Mongolians, though they remain a distinct ethnic and cultural group.

The language of the Salar people belongs to the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family. It has no written form. Today many Salar people speak either Tibetan or Mandarin rather than Salar.

The Salar people practice Islam.

Agriculture is the mainstay of the Salar. Chief crops include wheat, barley, potatoes, buckwheat, chili peppers, pears, apricots, grapes, dates, apples, and walnuts.

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