Yunnan
Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture 德宏傣族景颇族自治州

Dehong administers the triangular territory west of the Salween along the valleys of the Ruili and the Taiping River, bordering onto Baoshan in the east while being surrounded the other two sides by Burma. With a subtropical climate and a population with a heavy dose of ethnic minority groups in the presence of Dai, Jingpo and Lisu as well as Achang and Deang, Dehong has a distinct Burmese feel to it.

Today, Dehong's largest city is Mangshi, officially known as Luxi, followed by the thriving border town Ruili, China's drug and HIV capital. Yet the northern route through what are now Lianghe and Yingjiang was the until the building of the Burma Road in the 1930s China's trade link to Burma, travelleed for centuries by caravans. Longchuan lies along the western side of the Dehong triangle.

1875: Death of a British Diplomat

After Britain's 1852 annexation of lower Burma lucrative trade with China through its back-door seemed more than a distant possibility. But after a successful first mission up the Irrawaddy and into Yunnan in 1868, the second British mission six years later ended in tragedy.

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