Minnan dialect is said to have originated in the Luoshui Valley of the Yellow River, moved to southern Fujian during the Western Jin, Tang and Northern Song Dynasties, and originated in Quanzhou, Fujian. In addition to southern Fujian and Taiwan Province Province, it is also widely distributed in northeastern Fujian, southeastern Zhejiang, Chaoshan and Shanwei in Guangdong, Pearl River Delta, Leizhou Peninsula in Guangdong, Hainan Island and most Chinese-inhabited areas in Southeast Asia.
The word "Minnan dialect" has broad and narrow meanings. In a broad sense, it refers to the collection of Minnan languages, and in a narrow sense, it only refers to the Minnan languages of Fujian and Taiwan Province. Scholars in Taiwan Province Province and the West believe that it is a language and belongs to Sino-Tibetan language family. In the classification of continental linguistics, it belongs to a kind of Min language in Chinese language family.
Minnan dialect has different names in different places, such as Quanzhou dialect, Zhangzhou dialect, Xiamen dialect, Fujian dialect, Shanwei dialect and Heluo dialect in Chinese mainland. In Taiwan Province Province, it is also called Taiwanese, Taiwanese, Heluo or Fulao dialect, while overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia are called Minnan or Zan dialect (Taiwanese is written as Zan Nong dialect).