Zhuang ethnic minority is the largest minority group in China. Here, we report for the first time the polymorphisms of MICA and MICB in a healthy Zhuang population of 209 unrelated individuals. Using polymerase chain reaction-sequence specific priming (PCR-SSP) and sequencing-based typing (PCR-SBT), 13 MICA-sequence alleles and 5 MICA-STR alleles, as well as 11 MICB alleles were detected, among which MICA ∗ 010, MICA ∗ A5 and MICB ∗ 005:02 were the most frequent alleles. Linkage disequilibria was investigated and the most common two-locus haplotypes were MICB ∗ 005:02-MICA ∗ 010 and MICB ∗ 014-MICA ∗ 045. These results suggest informative genetic markers for investigating origins and evolution of MHC class I region haplotypes in Zhuang population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]