The Shan are the largest of the many national ethnic groups residing in the Union of Myanmar. After migrating from their early home in the Hwangho-Yangtze region of China, they settled in the eastern part of today's Myanmar, primarily in the Shan Plateau, around the first century AD. The Shan dominated the political stage for a few centuries, founding three historically important dynasties in the heartland of Myanmar at Pinya, Sagaing, and Inwa. Shan history then merges with that of Myanmar until after World War II and Myanmar's independence from the British, when the Shan initiated...