The Sala ethnic minority, with a population of 87,697 (as of 1990), mainly lives in the Xunhua Sala Autonomous County in eastern Qinghai Province.

There is also a sparse distribution in Gansu, Xinjiang and some other counties in Qinghai Province. The Sala people have their own language which belongs to the Turkic Austronesian of the Altaic Phylum.

As a result of frequent contact with the Han, Hui and Tibetan people, the language of the Sala contains quite a number of words taken from the Chinese and Tibetan languages. These days most young and middle-aged can speak Chinese.

The language of the Sala people has no written form and Han character is widely used in daily life. The ancestors of the Sala people were the Samarkand people who migrated from Central Asia to China during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). They entered into the eastern Qinghai Province and settled down in the Xunhua area.

The continuous integration of the Samarkand people with the Tibetans, Huis, Hans, and Mongolians finally gave birth to the present Salar ethnic minority.

The Sala people call themselves "Sala'er". Han people usually call them "Sala", "Salacu", "Salahui", etc. With the founding of the PRC in 1949, following consultation with this ethnic minority, the official name of Salar ethnic minority was established.

The Sala people take agriculture as their mainstay, and are adept at horticulture since gardening is well developed. They are especially famous for the planting of chili and red peppers, as well as the apiculture.

The Salas live in mountainous areas in which rugged mountain paths diverge and the Yellow River flows by.

Nowadays, you can still see the brave Salas steer their wooden rafts along the Yellow River. All the Sala people believe in Islam. Like other Muslims, the Sala people strictly obey the rules of studying the Muslim scripture, attending religious service, and going on pilgrimages.

Influenced by the Islamic culture, the Sala people mainly celebrate the Corban Festival, the Almsgiving Festival and the Kaizhai Festival.

The short jackets worn by Sala men are a bit looser or shorter than those of the neighboring Han men. However, they wear narrow long gowns. And, they wear a piece of cloth or a silk band, a white or black round-topped cap.

Young men love to wear white gowns plus black waistcoats, and a red waistcloth. Old men mostly wear long gowns. They coil a long piece of white cloth around the head in worships.

Young women like to wear colorful clothes buttoned on the right and often wear a black waistcoat over a red jacket. Women prefer to wear accessories such as long strings of earrings, fingerings, and bracelets, etc. They wear long gowns and veils.

Evolved from veils worn by Islamic women, the veils worn by Sala women cover the whole head with only the face exposed. Girls or women who just get married wear green ones, those who have been married long or have given birth to a baby wear black ones, and women above 50 years old shift to white ones.