With a population of about 8,000, the La Chi chiefly live in Xin Man district (Ha Giang province) and Muong Khuong and Bac Ha districts (Lao Cai province). They are also known as the Cu Te, the Tho Den and the La Qua. Their language belongs to the Kadai Group.

The La Chi grow wet rice in terraced fields. The families raise buffaloes, horses, goats, poultry and fish but not oxen. La Chi women have a long-standing tradition of weaving and indigo dyeing.

The La Chi live a sedentary life in small villages, in which each family uses a shift house as living quarters and an adjoining mud house as the kitchen. The shift house has three rooms and only one stairway, near the kitchen. The ancestral altar is in the largest room.

La Chi attire is simple and elegant. Men wear a five-panelled shirt falling down below the knees (nowadays they are shorter), wide trousers and turbans. The women usually wear a four-panelled dress with a belt and a bra, a long turban, and a pair of trousers or a skirt. Ornaments are bracelets for men and bracelets and earrings for women. La Chi women usually carry a pack over their forehead made of cloth or bamboo plaits, while men carry shoulder baskets.

Each family lineage has its own drums and gongs used in ritual ceremonies, conducted by the head of the lineage. Children take the family name of their fathers. As wedding present, the groom's family has to offer an amount of money as the cost of the girl's upbringing.

Every year, the La Chi hold periodical ceremonies in accordance with the lunar calendar, to provide rice seeds for the entire village, to open the store to invoke the spirit of the rice seeds, to celebrate the completion of the harvest, the new rice ritual and the 7^th lunar month and New Year festivals. The 7^th lunar month festival is the biggest and the merriest.

There are many old tales about the founder of this ethnic group - Old Hoang Din Thung and Pu Lo To who created different genres and species and taught people about natural phenomena and habits and customs. Young boys and young girls like to sing nica songs. Musical instruments include drums, gongs, the 3-stringed zithers (dan tinh) and mouth-organs using spinning, swinging and merry-go-round held in vast areas for many participants.