Yunnan

Yunnan, province in southern China, bordering the countries of Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. Most of the inhabitants of Yunnan live on a relatively low plateau in the east, which includes an economic center at Kunming. Kunming is the capital, largest city, and principal industrial center of Yunnan. An inaccessible high plateau, dissected by deep gorges, dominates the western areas. Ethnic minorities, including Yi, Miao, Dai, and Tibetans, constitute about one-fourth of the total population. The chief crops, restricted to small areas suitable for farming, are rice and corn. Resources include tin (at Gejiu), copper (at Dongchuan), iron ore (at Jincheng), and coal (underlying much of the province).

After a brief period of tenuous Chinese control in Han times (206bc-ad220), Yunnan became the center of the powerful Thai kingdom of Nan Chao in the 8th century. Nan Chao was conquered and incorporated into China as a province by the Mongols in the 13th century, but Chinese control remained in the hands of local officials and warlords until as late as the 1930s. The modern economic development of Yunnan began during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), a component of World War II, when government agencies and important industrial establishments were relocated here, away from the Japanese-occupied eastern coast. Area, about 394,000 sq km (about 152,000 sq mi); population 43,756,000 (2003 estimate).