Mainland Southeast Asia

The realms

1. The kingdom of Pagan under NarapatisithuNarapatisithuKingdom

   Pagan is the one large, rich and literate state of the western mainland on the morning of 1 January 1200.

2. The kingdom of Arakan (the Lemro)Kingdom

   Arakan is a country of its own with a mountain between it and Burma.

3. The Shan and Kachin valley lordshipsValley lordships, no paramount

   This is a muang country and not a state: each valley is a rice floor with a lord, a stockade at its head and villages that owe him labour, and loyalty runs to a person, not to a crown.

4. The Khmer empire of Jayavarman VIIJayavarman VIIEmpire, at war with Champa

   The Khmer empire is the largest and best documented state on the mainland.

5. The Lao muang of the middle MekongValley chiefs, no paramount

   A string of Tai and Lao valley principalities (muang) on the middle Mekong and its tributaries, each one rice plain with a stockade or a river landing at its head and a chao muang loyal to a person, not a crown.

6. Haripunjaya, the Mon kingdom of LamphunMon kingdom of the Ping, king not named

   Haripunjaya (Hariphunchai) is the Mon-speaking Buddhist kingdom of the Chiang Mai and Lamphun basin.

7. Ngoenyang, the Tai muang of the Mekong bendTai muang, phaya not named

   Ngoenyang is the senior Tai muang of the Mekong bend: a stockaded seat near Doi Tung and the mouth of the Ruak, with the lower Kok valley, the crossings of the Sai and of the Mekong, and satellite valleys at Fang, Phayao and the Ing under cadet lines or friend

8. Chiang Rung, the Tai Lue muang of Sipsong PannaTai Lue muang, lord not named

   Chiang Rung (Chiang Hung, Jinghong; "city of dawn") is the Tai Lue muang on the Lancang, the upper Mekong, in Xishuangbanna (Sipsong Panna, "twelve panna", each panna a district of rice fields).

9. The Tai muang of the Yom and the NanTai valley chiefs

   Two river valleys east of the Phi Pan Nam ridges: the Yom, with Phrae (Wiang Kosai) and Muang Song above it, and the Nan, with Pua above and the narrows at Wiang Sa below, and the brine wells of Bo Kluea in the hills of the upper Nan.

10. Dai Viet under Ly Cao TongLy Cao Tong

    Dai Viet (Đại Việt) is the Ly state, a delta kingdom ruled from Thăng Long (Hanoi).

11. Champa under SuryavarmadevaSuryavarmadeva, the prince the Khmer stele calls SriKingdom of the Cham plains, at war with Angkor

    Champa is not one kingdom ruled from one court but a string of river-mouth plains, each behind a port and each with a highland valley at its back, that obey whichever of them is strongest.

12. The Tai and Muong valley lords of the north-westValley lordships, no paramount

    The hills between the delta and the Mekong are a string of valley principalities, each a bowl of terraced wet rice under a hereditary lord with his own law, drums and sworn kin.

13. The kingdom of DaliDuan Zhixing

    Dali is the Buddhist kingdom of the Yunnan plateau.

14. Self-governing peoples of Mainland Southeast AsiaNone named for 1199 to 1200 in the sources readSelf-governing peoples

    Between and round the kingdoms of the mainland lie hills, forests and gorges whose peoples answer to no king on 1 January 1200.

Self-governing peoples and other lands

Records of this region that belong to no single realm page.

• The highland border · belt

Primary sources for Mainland Southeast Asia

• A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date.
• 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.
• The Grahi (Chaiya) Buddha inscription and the Tambralinga records, Various (the officers of Grahi and the kings of Tambralinga), edited by George Coedes (the Chaiya bronze Buddha inscription 1183; the Nakhon Si Thammarat records 13th century; edited 1929, revised 1961). The peninsula in 1200 has one near-contemporary dated text: the Old Khmer inscription on the base of a bronze Buddha from Wat Hua Wiang at Chaiya, dated 1183, which records the image's casting by order of the mahasenapati Galanai, governor of Grahi, under the king Srimat Trailokyaraja Maulibhusanavarmadeva, a name that is argued to be either a Malayu (Srivijaya) overlord or a local king.
• Corpus of the Inscriptions of Campa (EFEO and ISAW), Various (the Cham kings and their officers), edited by Arlo Griffiths, Amandine Lepoutre, William Southworth and Thanh Phan (inscriptions of the 4th to 15th centuries; the online corpus from 2012). The online edition of the Cham inscriptions, with photographs, texts and translations, keyed to the C. numbers.
• Epigraphia Birmanica, being lithic and other inscriptions of Burma, Various, edited by Taw Sein Ko, C. Duroiselle and C. O. Blagden (inscriptions of the 11th to 15th centuries; the series ran from 1919 to 1936). The Archaeological Survey of Burma's series of edited inscriptions with full translations.
• History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives.
• Inscriptions of Pagan, Pinya and Ava; Inscriptions of Burma, Various (the Pagan kings, queens, ministers and donors), edited by Tun Nyein, Taw Sein Ko, G. H. Luce and Pe Maung Tin (inscriptions of the 11th to 14th centuries; editions 1899 and 1933 to 1956). The dedicatory inscriptions of Pagan are the only contemporary texts for the kingdom of Narapatisithu (reigning 1174 to 1211).
• The Abridged History of Viet, Anonymous (attributed by some to Su Hy Nhan) (about 1377, probably as an abridgement of Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272). The oldest surviving Vietnamese history, a century older than the Complete Annals and in places fuller for the Ly dynasty, which fills its second and third books.
• The Complete Annals of Dai Viet, Ngo Si Lien, drawing on Le Van Huu's Dai Viet su ky (1272) and Phan Phu Tien; continued by Pham Cong Tru and Le Hi (1479; printed 1697 in the standard Chinh Hoa edition). The main narrative source for Dai Viet in 1200, compiled in 1479 from Le Van Huu's lost history of 1272.
• The Customs of Cambodia, Zhou Daguan (after 1297, from a stay at Angkor in 1296 to 1297). A Chinese envoy's account of Angkor a century after Jayavarman VII, and the only description of the city and its court by an eyewitness.
• The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma, The Royal Historical Commission of King Bagyidaw (Monywe Sayadaw and others), drawing on U Kala's Maha Yazawin (about 1724) and earlier chronicles (1829 to 1832). The standard Burmese court chronicle, compiled six centuries after 1200 from older chronicles now lost.
• The Inscriptions of Cambodia, Various (the Khmer kings and their officers), edited by George Coedes (inscriptions of the 6th to 14th centuries; edited 1937 to 1966). The Khmer empire of 1200 is known almost entirely from the great foundation stelae of Jayavarman VII (reigning from 1181), which Coedes edited: the Ta Prohm stele of 1186 (K.
• The later Tai, Lao and Mon chronicles of the north, Ratanapanna (Jinakalamali); Bodhiramsi (Chamadevivamsa); anonymous monks and court scribes (the Chamadevivamsa about 1410; the Jinakalamali 1516 to 1528; the Chiang Mai Chronicle in its surviving form 1827; the Nithan Khun Borom 16th to 17th century). There is no text of 1200 for the Mon kingdom of Haripunjaya, the Tai muang of Ngoenyang (Chiang Saen), Chiang Rung, the Yom and Nan valleys, or the Lao middle Mekong.
• The Sanskrit inscriptions of Cambodia and Champa (ISCC), Various (Khmer and Cham kings), edited by Auguste Barth and Abel Bergaigne (inscriptions of the 7th to 12th centuries; edited 1885 to 1893). The founding edition of Khmer and Cham Sanskrit epigraphy, public domain and online, which Coedes's later corpus supersedes but does not replace.
• The Unofficial History of Nanzhao, Yang Shen; revised by Hu Wei (16th century, revised 1775, from Dali and Yunnan traditions and lost local histories). The kingdom of Dali has no surviving text of 1200: its own records were destroyed in the Mongol conquest and after, and the Song shi's Dali entry ends in 1175.
• Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200.
• 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.
• 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.

The whole sources library

How these entries are made

Every entry describes one morning, 1 January 1200, and keeps later events in a dated "what the year holds" list with the conditions each depended on. Each entry names its sources, rates its confidence and says where the sources disagree. Published 4 November 2026. Corrections are welcome.