linguistic:paraphrasing, stylistic:tone
North and south divides

Recent scholarly works have found basic differences between north and south folk religion. Folk religion of southern and southeastern provinces is focused on the lineages and their churches (zōngzú xiéhuì Chinese: 宗族協會) focusing on ancestral gods, while the folk religion of central-northern China (North China Plain) hinges on the communal worship of tutelary deities of creation and nature as identity symbols by villages populated by families of different surnames. They are structured into "communities of the god(s)" (shénshè Chinese: 神社, or huì Chinese: 會, "association"), which organise temple ceremonies (miaohui Chinese: 廟會), involving processions and pilgrimages, and led by indigenous ritual masters (fashi) who are often hereditary and linked to secular authority.

Northern and southern folk religions also have a different pantheon, of which the northern one is composed of more ancient gods of Chinese mythology. Furthermore, folk religious sects have historically been more successful in the central plains and in the northeastern provinces than in southern China, and central-northern folk religion shares characteristics of some of the sects, such as the heavy importance of mother goddess worship and shamanism, as well as their scriptural transmission. Confucian churches as well have historically found much resonance among the population of the northeast; in the 1930s the Universal Church of the Way and its Virtue alone aggregated at least 25% of the population of the state of Manchuria and contemporary Shandong has been analysed as an area of rapid growth of folk Confucian groups.

Along the southeastern coast, ritual functions of the folk religion are reportedly dominated by Taoism, both in registered and unregistered forms (Zhengyi Taoism and unrecognised fashi orders), which since the 1990s has developed quickly in the area.

Goossaert talks of this distinction, although recognising it as an oversimplification, of a "Taoist south" and a "village-religion/Confucian centre-north", with the northern context also characterised by important orders of "folk Taoist" ritual masters, one of which are the Chinese: 陰陽生 yīnyángshēng ("sages of yin and yang"), and sectarian traditions, and also by a low influence of Buddhism and official Taoism.

The folk religion of northeast China has unique characteristics deriving from the interaction of Han religion with Tungus and Manchu shamanisms; these include chūmǎxiān (Chinese: 出馬仙 "riding for the immortals") shamanism, the worship of foxes and other zoomorphic deities, and the Fox Gods (Chinese: 狐神 Húshén)—Great Lord of the Three Foxes (Chinese: 胡三太爺 Húsān Tàiyé) and the Great Lady of the Three Foxes (Chinese: 胡三太奶 Húsān Tàinǎi)—at the head of pantheons. Otherwise, in the religious context of Inner Mongolia there has been a significant integration of Han Chinese into the traditional folk religion of the region.

In recent years there has also been an assimilation of deities from Tibetan folk religion, especially wealth gods. In Tibet, across broader western China, and in Inner Mongolia, there has been a growth of the cult of Gesar with the explicit support of the Chinese government, a cross-ethnic Han-Tibetan, Mongol and Manchu deity (the Han identify him as an aspect of the god of war analogically with Guandi) and culture hero whose mythology is embodied as a culturally important epic poem.