Chronicle of Sipsong Panna: History and Society of a Tai Lu Kingdom, Twelfth to Twentieth Century

The Tai Lü are a Tai-speaking group closely related to the Khon Müang or Tai Yuan, the dominant ethnic group in Northern Thailand. According to their own historical tradition, the ancestors of the Tai Lü migrated from what is now northwestern Vietnam into the southern part of Yunnan, where they founded their own kingdom in the twelfth century. Today, the Tai Lü are the most important population group within the so-called "Economic Quadrangle" of the Upper Mekong, which plays an increasingly...