Tai Long

Tai Long, or Great Tai, is the self-name of the Shan proper, the main body of the Shan people who cultivate wet rice across the Shan plateau and speak a Northwestern Tai language. Migrants from Yunnan, they held the plateau from the tenth century, and their kingdom of Mong Mao was a tributary of Anawrahta of Pagan, who reigned from 1044 to 1077.

When the Mongols overthrew Pagan in 1287, Shan chiefs filled the vacuum up the Irrawaddy; the Mohnyin-led confederation sacked Ava in 1527 and held Upper Burma until 1555. Two years later Bayinnaung of the restored Burmese empire subdued the Shan principalities, whose saopha chiefs kept much of their autonomy as tributaries.

Theravada Buddhism, learned early from the Mon, shaped their temple towns. Shan levies formed a large part of the Burmese armies that met the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824 to 1826.