The deep Salween gorge between the Gaoligong and the Biluo range is hill country of small villages (Nu, Pumi-side and Tibetan-side neighbours, with the Lisu and Derung of later accounts).
The Lisu appear in Ming sources and the Derung farther north belong to the Tibet map's side of the line. Nothing I read shows a Dali officer here in 1200; the gorge is a barrier on the way from the Lancang to the Irrawaddy sources. North of 27.2 N and west of 100.0 E the ground is the Tibet map's. The ethnic names are modern groupings; the Tang Manshu and the Yuan texts use other names (Wuman, Baiman, Pu, Wang, Moxie, Mang) and the match is the scholars', not proved for 1200.
The sources for these hills are Tang and Yuan notices, Chinese Wikipedia pages on the counties and ethnography of much later centuries; none is dated to 1199 or 1200.
Who holds it
- Title
- Village headmen
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Family
- village headmen and ritual specialists
- Confidence
- low
No source we read describes them for 1200.
Overlord
No overlord is shown; Dali's reach is a claim from the Lijiang and Weixi side.
How things stand that morning
Self-governing villages; no event dated.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: General statements and the geography only.
On the map: Drawn from the modern counties where these peoples live; the real range of 1200 had no line and is not known.
Sources and studies
- Chinese Wikipedia, 大理国 (read this session: the eight fu, four jun, four zhen and thirty-seven bu; it cites Yang Shen's Dian zai ji, Wang Song's Yunnan beizhengzhi, Ni Lu's Nanzhao yeshi, the Baigu tongji qianshu)
- Tibet map research record tie-l-gyalthang-dechen-chiefs (/home/claude/research/tib/tie.json)
- OMNIA board, notes_msy.txt and places_msy.tsv (a lead, not a source)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.