Shans, a number of tribes of common origin, who live on the borders of Burma, Siam, and China, to which three states they are in great part subject, though some are independent (see map at Vol. II. p. 562). They are the descendants of an aboriginal race of China; their home generations ago was in the mountainous region on the borders of the Chinese provinces of Sze-chuen and Shensi. In the course of time they have been pushed southwards. They seem to have entered the valley of the Irawadi in the 6th century B.C. The Shans and the Laos are one and the same people, and both are closely akin to the Siamese. The country the Shans inhabit may be broadly described as a succession of wide river-valleys (of the Menam, Meping, Mekok, Mekhong, &c.) separated by high ridges; on the north it climbs up to the Yunnan plateau of southern China. There are extensive and valuable forests of teak; iron, rubies, and silver are extracted, and gold, copper, coal, and petroleum are known to exist. Rice, cotton, and tobacco are the crops most extensively grown. The people are noted for chased work in gold and silver. The tribes that acknowledge the supremacy of Siam are estimated to number 2,000,000 people; at the census of 1891 it was computed that there were about the same number under British rule in Burma. The number of Shans subject to China, and the numbers of the independent tribes, are alike unknown. But equally whether tributary or independent, they are distributed amongst several states, of which the most important are Zimmé (Chieng-Mai), Kiang Hsen, Lapon, Nan, Lakhon, and Peh, tributary to Siam; Luang-Prabang, now French; Kiang Hung, Kiang Tung, Mone, Katchin, and others now incorporated in Burma. The Shans are an indolent, laughter-loving people, fond of gambling and cock-fighting, not unwarlike, though orderly and fairly trustworthy; the women have great influence, and enjoy equal freedom with the men. Slavery, however, exists, but in a mild form; and serfdom is general. The rule of the native chiefs is generally just and mild, and taxation is light. Buddhism is the dominant religion, though it is mingled with many superstitious practices. Zimmé and others of the principal towns are the seats of a very extensive transit trade between Yunnan, Tali, and the marts of southern China, on the one side, and Bangkok and the ports of Burma on the other; the traders, mostly Chinamen, bring down from Yunnan silks, iron and copper utensils, opium, straw-hats, beeswax, figured cloth, tea, and walnuts, and take back cotton, raw and woven, and European manufactured goods. There is also a large trade in the native commodities—horns and hides, ivory, cutch, gold-leaf, saltpetre, sapan wood, salt, lead, steel, betel-nuts, stick-lac, &c. Since 1881 Messrs Hallett and Colquhoun have been advocating the construction of a railway from Bangkok to Kiang Hsen, on the northern frontier of Siam, and thence to Ssumao on the Chinese border, with a branch-line of 100 miles from Maulmain in Burma. Other alternative routes are proposed to the commercially very important provinces of southern China; the one which apparently the government of India favours is an extension of the Burman system northwards from Bhamo.
The first Shan state to rise to the level of historical importance was the Mau kingdom, the ruler of which in the 13th century conquered all Burma, the upper parts of Siam and the Malay Peninsula, and made his influence felt from Tali in China as far as Java and Cambodia. All the northern portions of this extensive empire, including Burma, were ruled by Mau princes down to 1554. Shortly after that date the tables were turned, and most of the Shan states became tributary to the emperor of Pegu. Other powerful states about the same period were Zimmé and Vien-chang. The former still exists, but subject to Siam; the latter, a Laos state, was destroyed in the 18th century. About 1774-77 Siam drove out the Burmese and Peguans, and made herself mistress of the southern Shan states, Zimmé and Vien-chang. Ruins of large cities exist in great numbers throughout the middle portions of the Shan country; they are the relics of the ephemeral capitals of different Shan states.
See Holt S. Hallett, A Thousand Miles on an Elephant (1890); Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans (1885); Cheek, Siam and Laos (Amer. Presb. Mission Board); Carl Bock, Temples and Elephants (1884); E. Aymonier's articles 'Les Tchames et leurs Religions' in the Revue de l'Histoire des Religions for 1891; and books quoted under SIAM.