The limestone hills between Thái Nguyên and Cao Bằng, with the Ba Bể lakes: Tai-speaking hill folk under local headmen on the road to Quảng Nguyên.
The name Bắc Kạn is modern; we know no Ly-period unit here, and the ground may have been a hinterland of Thái Nguyên or Quảng Nguyên. Thin.
Who holds it
- Title
- Hill headmen
- Confidence
- low
None for 1200
Overlord
The chiefs of Thái Nguyên or Quảng Nguyên, as far as we can tell.
Wealth
Hill rice, forest goods.
Places of note
- Bac Kan: Seat or best-known place
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: No source; drawn so the hills are not left as empty ground.
On the map: A union of modern districts standing for the country; the real edge was not a line (a raiding belt or a day's walk of hills).
Primary sources for Chiefs of the south-west
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- History of the Song, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345, from the Song veritable records, state histories and the Huiyao). The official history of the Southern Song, which ruled from Lin'an (Hangzhou) in 1200. Read online
- History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
- Draft Compilation of the Collected Statutes of the Song, Various; the Song huiyao were compiled by the Song state, the surviving draft reassembled by Xu Song from the Yongle dadian in the nineteenth century (the original Song compilations date from the eleventh to the thirteenth century; the surviving extracts were recovered in 1809 to 1820 and printed in 1936). Dated extracts from the Song government's own statute collections, arranged by office. Read online
- Miscellaneous Notes on Court and Country since the Jianyan Era, Li Xinchuan (李心傳) (first series 1202, second series 1216). A contemporary handbook of the Southern Song state, written in Sichuan by the historian Li Xinchuan and finished in its first part in 1202, two years after the start of 1200. Read online
- Notes in Answer to Questions about the Lands beyond the Passes, Zhou Qufei (周去非) (1178, after service in Guangxi). A Guangxi official's notes, written twenty years before 1200, on the south-western frontier of the Song and the countries beyond. Read online
Sources and studies
- OMNIA board notes for the Vietnam and Champa area (a lead, not a source)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.