The Shan States were a constellation of dozens of semi-independent Tai (Shan) principalities (mong) on the Shan Plateau of eastern Burma, each ruled by a hereditary saopha ('lord of the sky'). Emerging as significant polities from the 13th-16th centuries, they persisted through the early-modern era as tributary realms under nominal Burmese suzerainty, retaining substantial internal autonomy, before the British formalised them as the 'Shan States' after annexing Upper Burma in 1885-87. Modelled here as an umbrella per the atlas's umbrella convention; the major states (Kengtung, Hsipaw, Yawnghwe, Mongnai, Mongmit) could later be split out individually.
Formalised and administered as a British protectorate group ('the Shan States') from 1887; incorporated into British Burma and later the Union of Burma (1948).
The atlas holds 4 border frames for Shan States — the shape you scrub through changes in 1500 · 1515 · 1565 · 1708.
The exhaustive colonial reference cataloguing every Shan state, its dynasty and extent (Open Library /works/OL4003709W).