Standard Zhuang in the context of Wuming District

Guilin (Standard Zhuang: Gveilinz), formerly romanized as Kweilin, is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It is situated on the west bank of the Li River and borders Hunan to the north. Its name means "forest of sweet osmanthus", owing to the large number of fragrant sweet osmanthus trees located in the region. The city has long been renowned for its scenery of karst topography.

Guilin is one of China's most popular tourist destinations, and the epithet "By water, by mountains, most lovely, Guilin" (山水甲天下) is often associated with the city. The State Council of China has designated Guilin a National Famous Historical and Cultural City, doing so in the first edition of the list.

There are several hundred languages in the People's Republic of China. The predominant language is Standard Chinese, which is based on Beijingese, but there are hundreds of related Chinese languages, collectively known as Hanyu (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語; pinyin: Hànyǔ, 'Han language'), that are spoken by 92% of the population. The Chinese (or 'Sinitic') languages are typically divided into seven major language groups, and their study is a distinct academic discipline. They differ as much from each other morphologically and phonetically as do English, German and Danish, but speakers of different Chinese languages are taught to write in Mandarin (written vernacular Mandarin) at school and often do to communicate with speakers of other Chinese languages. This does not mean non-Mandarin Sinitic languages do not have vernacular written forms however (see written Cantonese). There are in addition approximately 300 minority languages spoken by the remaining 8% of the population of China. The ones with greatest state support are Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur and Zhuang.

According to the 2010 edition of Nationalencyklopedin, 955 million out of China's then-population of 1.34 billion spoke some variety of Mandarin Chinese as their first language, accounting for 71% of the country's population. According to the 2019 edition of Ethnologue, 904 million people in China spoke some variety of Mandarin as their first language in 2017.

The Zhuang languages (/ˈdʒwæŋ, ˈdʒwɒŋ/; autonym: Vahcuengh, Zhuang pronunciation: [βa˧ɕuːŋ˧], pre-1982: Vaƅcueŋƅ, Sawndip: 話僮, from vah, 'language' and Cuengh, 'Zhuang'; simplified Chinese: 壮语; traditional Chinese: 壯語; pinyin: Zhuàngyǔ) are the more than a dozen Tai languages spoken by the Zhuang people of Southern China in the province of Guangxi and adjacent parts of Yunnan and Guangdong. The Zhuang languages do not form a monophyletic linguistic unit, as northern and southern Zhuang languages are more closely related to other Tai languages than to each other. Northern Zhuang languages form a dialect continuum with Northern Tai varieties across the provincial border in Guizhou, which are designated as Bouyei, whereas Southern Zhuang languages form another dialect continuum with Central Tai varieties such as Nung, Tay and Caolan in Vietnam. Standard Zhuang is based on the Northern Zhuang dialect of Wuming.

The Tai languages are believed to have been originally spoken in what is now southern China, with speakers of the Southwestern Tai languages (which include Thai, Lao and Shan) having emigrated in the face of Chinese expansion.Noting that both the Zhuang and Thai peoples have the same exonym for the Vietnamese, kɛɛu, from the Chinese commandery of Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam, Jerold A. Edmondson posited that the split between Zhuang and the Southwestern Tai languages happened no earlier than the founding of Jiaozhi in 112 BC. He also argues that the departure of the Thai from southern China must predate the 5th century AD, when the Tai who remained in China began to take family names.

Sawndip (Sawndip: 𭨡𮄫; Zhuang pronunciation: [θaɯ˨˦ɗip˥]) are Chinese characters used to write the Zhuang languages in the Chinese provinces of Guangxi and Yunnan. Sawndip is a Zhuang word that means "immature characters". The Zhuang word for Chinese characters used in the Chinese languages is sawgun (𭨡倱 'Han characters'); gun is the Zhuang term for the Han Chinese. Even now, in traditional and less formal domains, Sawndip is more often used than alphabetical scripts.

The Zhuang languages (/ˈdʒwæŋ, ˈdʒwɒŋ/; autonym: Vahcuengh [βa˧ɕuːŋ˧], Sawndip: 話僮) are more than a dozen Tai languages spoken by the Zhuang people of Southern China in the province of Guangxi and adjacent parts of Yunnan and Guangdong. The Zhuang languages do not form a monophyletic linguistic unit, as northern and southern Zhuang languages are more closely related to other Tai languages than to each other. Northern Zhuang languages form a dialect continuum with Northern Tai varieties across the provincial border in Guizhou, which are designated as Bouyei, whereas Southern Zhuang languages form another dialect continuum with Central Tai varieties such as Nung, Tay and Caolan in Vietnam. Standard Zhuang is based on the Northern Zhuang dialect of Wuming.

The Tai languages are believed to have been originally spoken in what is now southern China, with speakers of the Southwestern Tai languages, which include Thai (modern-day Thailand), Lao (modern-day Laos) and Shan (modern-day Shan State, Myanmar) having emigrated south in the face of Chinese expansion. Noting that both the Zhuang and Thai peoples have the same exonym for the Vietnamese, kɛɛu, from the Chinese commandery of Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam, Jerold A. Edmondson posited that the split between Zhuang and the Southwestern Tai languages happened no earlier than the founding of Jiaozhi in 112 BC. He also argues that the departure of the Thai from southern China must predate the 5th century AD, when the Tai who remained in China began to take family names.

Wuming District (simplified Chinese: 武鸣区; traditional Chinese: 武鳴區; pinyin: Wǔmíng Qū; Standard Zhuang: Vujmingz Gih) is one of 7 districts of the prefecture-level city of Nanning, the capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, South China. The district was approved to build from the dissolution of the former Wuming County (武鸣县) by the Chinese State Council on February 16, 2015. Located north of the city proper, it borders the prefecture-level city of Baise to the west.