The Li population comes to 1,110,900. Most of the Lis now live in Dongfang, Baisha, Lingshui, Changjiang Li Autonomous Counties, and Ledong, Qiongzhong, and Baoting Li-Miao Autonomous Counties in the middle south of Hainan Province. The rest are scattered elsewhere in cities of the island or live together with other nationalities.

The Wuzhi Mountain area where the Lis make their homes is in the picturesque subtropical zones. The long summer makes it possible to harvest rice crops three times a year. This beautiful land attracts more and more tourists each year.

Rice is the staple crop of the Lis. In addition to farming, local people developed a diversified economy, fishing, hunting, gathering and planting trees.

According to archeologists, the Lis are the earliest inhabitants of the fertile Hainan Island. The primitive cultural relics of the New Stone Age left by the Li progenitors are over 100. The Lis were developed from the ancient Yue people and had close origins with the Luoyue people, which was a branch of the Baiyue group. In history, the Lis called themselves "Xiao", "Qi", "Bendi", "Meifu" or "Sai". After the Song Dynasty, they took the name Li.

The Li language belongs to the Zhuang- Dong group of the Sino-Tibetan family and has no script. After the founding of new China, the Lis started to use Chinese.