The concept of Austronesian was initially proposed by linguists as an academic classification based on linguistic genealogy. Thus, Austronesian refers to the people who speak Austronesian languages. According to the international academic community, Austronesian populations are primarily distributed among island-based maritime communities. There are over 1,200 Austronesian languages, which can be broadly categorized into two major groups: "Taiwan Austronesian" and "Malayo-Polynesian."

The geographical distribution spans from the southeastern coast of China and the Hawaiian Islands in the United States in the north, to the entire New Zealand archipelago in the south, westward to Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, and eastward to Easter Island in the eastern Pacific. Major settlement areas include China's Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Currently, the global population speaking Austronesian languages reaches approximately 400 million.

Since the 1980s, the international academic community has widely recognized that the origin of the Austronesian people is in the southeastern coast of China—a view increasingly supported by archaeological evidence.