Yunnan historical timeline

Yunnan was not part of China for most of Chinese history, and that is the key to it.

Dian and the bronzes

Around Dian lake, a kingdom flourished from about the fifth century BC producing bronze work of great sophistication — drums, and lids modelled with entire scenes of ritual, warfare and market life in miniature. It was absorbed by the Han dynasty but remained peripheral.

Nanzhao and Dali

From the eighth century the Nanzhao kingdom, based at Dali, became a serious regional power — it defeated Tang armies twice, sacked Chengdu, and at its height controlled parts of what is now Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. Its successor, the Dali kingdom, ruled from 937 until the Mongols took it in 1253. Yunnan has therefore been governed from China for under eight hundred years, and its incorporation was a Mongol rather than a Chinese achievement.

The tea horse road

Caravans carried compressed tea north into Tibet and brought back horses, over routes crossing passes above 4,000 metres. The trade ran for a thousand years and built the towns at Shaxi, Lijiang and Dali.

The Burma Road

When Japan blockaded the Chinese coast, the Burma Road from Lashio to Kunming became the country’s lifeline, hacked out by hand labour in 1938. When it too was cut, supplies flew over the Hump — the eastern Himalaya — at enormous cost in aircraft and crews.

Since

Tourism from the 1990s transformed Lijiang and Dali, and the province is now China’s gateway to Southeast Asia.