Shan

Shan

 Shan Tai

Any member of a Southeast Asian people who live primarily in eastern and northwestern Myanmar (Burma) and also in Yunnan province, China. The Shan are the largest minority group in Myanmar, numbering more than four million. They live mainly in the valleys and plains on the Shan Plateau, where they grow rice or practice shifting agriculture. They are Theravada Buddhists and have their own written language and literature. They dominated much of Myanmar from the 13th to the 16th century; since the 1970s they have been at odds with the national government over the issue of local autonomy. See also Tai.

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Shan 

(self-designation, Thainyo), a nationality in Burma, inhabiting primarily the Shan Upland. According to a 1975 estimate, the Shan number 2.1 million.

The Shan, who speak a Thai language, profess Buddhism; the folk religion is based on tiger worship. The Shan first settled in Burma at about the beginning of the Common Era; a Shan state, with its capital at Muanmau, is known to have existed as early as the seventh century. In the 14th and 15th centuries all northern and central Burma was controlled by the Shan, who in turn came under the control of the Burmese kings in the mid-16th century.

The Shan are undergoing national consolidation in their own region of Burma, the Shan State. They engage chiefly in irrigation farming, including the cultivation of rice; the plow is still the principal agricultural implement. Highly developed handicrafts include smithery, jewelry-making, the making of lacquer ware, weaving, and mat braiding.

REFERENCE

Narody lugo-Vostochnoi Azii. Moscow, 1966.

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Shan 

a national state in Burma, in the Shan Upland. Area, 158,000 sq km. Population, 2,725,000 (1969), most of whom are of Shan nationality. The capital is the city of Taunggyi. The chief crops grown in the Shan state are rice, potatoes, tea, and citrus fruits. Nonagricultural economic activities include logging, the mining of lead-zinc ores (center, Baldwin), the mining of brown coal (center, Lashio), nonferrous metallurgy, and the processing of timber and agricultural raw materials.