Yuan Yida

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This is a Chinese name; the family name is Yuan.

Yuan Yida (Chinese: 袁义达) is a researcher from the Institute of Genetic and Developmental Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is the leading authority on Chinese surnames in mainland China, and has been working on statistical studies of surname distribution in the People's Republic of China over the past two decades.

Yuan Yida was born in 1947 in Shanghai, tracing his ancestry to Fenghua, Zhejiang. He spent much of his youth in Ningbo, before moving to Beijing and attending Beijing University. Between 1988 and 1992 he conducted research at Stanford University. In mainland China he has published more than 30 articles and two monographs.

Yuan Yida's most recent study was published in January 2006. The survey covers 1110 counties and cities with a total population of 296 million and includes 4100 surnames.

[edit] See also

• Chinese surname