Kachin Hills - Kachin People

Kachin People

The Kachin Hills are inhabited by the Kachin or Chingpaw, who are known on the Assam frontier as Singphos and on the Chinese frontier as Jingpos. Owing to the great number of tribes, sub-tribes and clans of the Kachins, the part of the Kachin hills which has been taken under administration in the Myitkyina and Bhamo districts was divided into 40 hill tracts (since reduced to five). Beyond these tracts, there are many Kachins in Katha, Mong Mit and the northern Shan States.

There were 64,405 Kachins enumerated at the census of 1901.

In the middle of the 19th century, the southern limit of the Kachins was 200 mi. farther north than it is now. Since then the race has been drifting steadily southward and eastward, a vast aggregate of small independent clans united by no common government, but all obeying a common impulse to move outwards from their original seats along the line of least resistance. Now the Kachins are on both sides of the border of upper Burma, and are a force to be reckoned with by frontier administrators.