autonomous regions of china are areas with very large numbers of ethnic minorities living in them. their local government is similar to a province, but unlike provinces, minority languages are often co-official alongside the chinese language, and some laws are written to meet the needs of the minority groups. china's five autonomous regions are the guangxi zhuang autonomous region, the inner mongolia autonomous region, the tibet autonomous region, the xinjiang uighur autonomous region (east turkestan), and the ningxia hui autonomous region. their shortened names are guangxi, inner mongolia, tibet, xinjiang, and ningxia respectively. the largest minority group in each region are the zhuang, the mongol, the tibetan, the uighur, and the hui people respectively.