Khon Muang

The Khon Muang, or Tai Yuan, are the Northern Thai people of the valleys around Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Phayao. They called themselves people of the mueang, the settled rice-plain towns.

King Mangrai united the northern Tai principalities from 1259, conquered the Mon kingdom of Hariphunchai around 1292 and in 1296 made Chiang Mai the capital of Lanna, the Land of a Million Rice Fields. From the Mon the Tai Yuan took Theravada Buddhism and the Tai Tham script. In 1337 Mangrai's dynasty ruled Chiang Mai; Lanna reached its zenith under King Tilok in the fifteenth century, fighting Ayutthaya.

In 1558 the Burmese Toungoo conquered Chiang Mai. Lanna nobles allied with Taksin of Siam to throw off the Burmese in 1774; after Chiang Saen fell in 1804 the country passed under Siamese suzerainty.