The Shan States (1885–1948) were a collection of minor Shan kingdoms called muang whose rulers bore the title saopha in British Burma. They were analogous to the princely states of British India.
Two Shan saophas with their wives seated between them at the Durbar held in New Delhi in honour of Edward VII.
The Shan people, also known as the Tai Long or Tai Yai, are a Tai ethnic group of Southeast Asia. The Shan are the biggest minority of Burma (Myanmar) and primarily live in the Shan State of this country, but also inhabit parts of Mandalay Region, Kachin State, Kayah State, Sagaing Region and Kayin State, and in adjacent regions of China, Laos, Assam and Meghalaya, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Though no reliable census has been taken in Burma since 1935, the Shan are estimated to number 4–6 million, with CIA Factbook giving an estimate of five million spread throughout Myanmar which is about 10% of the overall Burmese population.
Shan people
1889 photograph of a Shan woman
A Shan deer dance ceremony in the early 1900s
The Shan kinnara and kinnari dance.