Answer: Han Chinese people refer to themselves by all sorts of different names, not just Han like you might think; in fact, throughout history and even today, there are Chinese who call themselves as 唐人 “Tang people” or even “Ming people” in the case of Ming dynasty loyalists in history. Let me explain:
The Han dynasty was the first dynasty to occupy all of China proper, well aside from the short-lived Qin dynasty that only ruled for a meager 15 years and only had two emperors, while the Han dynasty’s rule spanned the course of nearly four centuries, making it the longest lasting Chinese dynasty during the Imperial Era (the Shang dynasty did last longer, but was much smaller and is considered as part of the Ancient era). The Han dynasty was also the first dynasty in which China began to exert significant influence over its neighbors; China’s military campaigns against the nomadic Xiongnu led to the Chinese territory to stretch all the way to the Tarim Basin in Central Asia, located in the southern part of modern day Xinjiang (新疆), where it was administered under the Han as the “Protectorate of the Western Regions”, and would later help create part of a trade network known as the “Silk Road”, a trade route that reached as far as the Mediterranean world:
Explanation:
