Huaning County has 1 subdistrict, 3 towns and 1 ethnic township.
The Huaning County Gazetteer 华宁县志 (1994:514) lists the following six Yi subgroups and their respective geographic distributions.
The following six Yi subgroups were recorded during the Qing dynasty.
The following Miao subgroups reside in Huaning County, by order of population size (Huaning County Gazetteer 1994:515):
Their locations are: