Kado

The Kado are the Kadu or Asak people of Burma's northwestern hills, centred on Katha along the upper Chindwin, their Sino-Tibetan language linking them to Ganan and Sak. Their Old Burmese name was Kantu; the Chinese History of Yuan records them in the 1200s as Jiandu and Marco Polo as Caindu.

They were the dominant people of the Chindwin valley in the early second millennium, and scholars trace them to Qiongdu migrants who entered Burma under the Tang and became a leading element of the Tagaung kingdom, Pyu said to have received Buddhism through them.

Pagan's rise and later Chin and Shan migrations into the Chindwin broke their predominance: by the 1200s many had merged into neighbouring Tibeto-Burman and Shan communities, while a mid-1200s split from the Sak, who moved toward Rakhine, left the Katha Kadu terrace-rice farmers under Shan and Burmese overlordship.