The Tai L? are a Tai-speaking group closely related to the Khon M?ang or Tai Yuan, the dominant ethnic group in Northern Thailand. According to their own historical tradition, the ancestors of the Tai L? migrated from what is now northwestern Vietnam into the southern part of Yunnan, where they founded their own kingdom in the twelfth century. Today, the Tai L? are the most important population group within the so-called "Economic Quadrangle" of the Upper Mekong, which plays an increasingly important economic and geopolitical role.

Chronicle of Sips?ng Panna offers the first...