Zomia
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Union of Zomia ပြည်ထောင်စု သျှမ်
(Lue) Pyidaunzu Hsan | |
|---|---|
 Flag
 Coat of arms
| |
 | |
| Capital | Yotkuy |
| Largest city | Jattasey |
| Recognised regional languages | |
| Ethnic groups |
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| Religion |
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| Demonym(s) | Zomi |
| Government | Federal Elective Absolute Monarchy |
• Prince Paramount | Nyapkthe III Uo Sthe |
• Viceregnant | Badithirat I Na Israt |
| Legislature | Trucial Assembly |
| Formation | |
• Demarcation of the Trucial Territory of the Northern Chieftaincies | 30th May 1883 |
• Declaration of the United Zomi Councils | 11th June 1958 |
• Reformation of the Trucial Assembly | 29th January 1966 |
• Declaration of the Union | 1st March 1970 |
| Area | |
• Total | 694,772 km2 (268,253 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• June 2021 estimate | 19,357,609 |
• Density | 32.3/km2 (83.7/sq mi) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2020 estimate |
• Total | $85.824 billion |
• Per capita | $3,734 |
| GDP (nominal) | 2020 estimate |
• Total | $29.830 billion |
• Per capita | $854 |
| HDI (2020) | 0.531 low |
| Currency | Kyaw (ƙ) |
| Driving side | left |
| Internet TLD | .hs |
Zomia, officially the Union of Zomia (Lue: ပြည်ထောင်စု သျှမ်, Pyidaunzu Hsan) is a landlocked state in Southeast Coius, bordered by Shangea in the Northwest, Kuthina in the Southwest, and Lavana in the Northeast. Though predominated by arid highlands, Zomia has a highly diverse geography, including seasonal tropical forest, subalpine forest, fertile intermontane valleys and open steppe along its Northern borders. It is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural state, with no official language and over a hundred recognised tribal minorities.
The Union is an elective monarchy formed from a federation of nine princely states and thirteen chieftaincies. Each principality is governed by a hereditary Sah, and each chieftaincy by a Thôsi, elected by a regional assembly. Together they constitute the Trucial Assembly, the unicameral legislature of the Union. An advisory panel elected by direct popular vote serves a consultative role.
Since the collapse of the United Zomi Councils in the 1970s, an ethnic Kyu socialist insurgency has been active in the Southeast, and since the early 2000s various political Irfanist movements have developed in the predominantly Oegun Northwest. Since its inception the Union has ranked highly on international watchlists for terrorism and corruption, and there have been allegations by foreign observers of civil rights abuses by royalist Hsan-Lue militias. Zomia is annually ranked 'not free' by the International Council for Democracy.
Etymology
Zomi is a word for 'highlander common' to many Chanwan and Kasine dialects in bordering regions of Kuthina, Shangea and Phet. When Weranian colonial agents reached the highland interior of Southeast Coius in the late 19th century, this exonym was the name under which they grouped its diverse peoples.
Hsan, the endonym used by the Union government, is believed to be Chanwan in origin, a corruption of the Kasine Isan, meaning 'Northeast'. This etymology is lent credence by the current understanding that the ancestors of the Hsan-Lue minority were originally displaced into the Zomi highlands by tribal warfare in the Lue State region of modern-day Kuthina, directly Southwest of Zomia.
History
Intermontane Period (800-1300)
Coinciding roughly with the Medieval Warm Period, during which the coasts of Southeast Coius were dominated by malarial wetlands and jungle - while the intermontane valleys of the interior became temperate - this era saw a series of Zomi city-states extend their hegemony far south and east into modern day Phet and Lavana. Though the narrow valleys of the highland region could not sustain large populations, complex irrigation and terracing techniques mitigated this disadvantage, and they did not suffer from the erratic seasonal flooding that increasingly left lowland polities weakened and vulnerable to incursions from highland peoples. Failing irrigation systems and waterborne epidemics spread by these floods led to the collapse of the Alvari Empire of Southwestern Lavana into warring states in the late 8th century, just as Nanpka, first of the major intermontane valley-states, arose at the confluence of the Kung and Qorl rivers. During the Classical Kungian Period of Lavanan history, most Alvari successor states paid tribute to Nanpkat warlords.
The Zomi Hegemonies were not empires in the same sense as the lowland polities of the Alvari, or later the Aguda, and the Chanwan during the reign Intharatcha. Rather they were loose tributary networks sustained only by the personal clout and military success of the Zomi princes. Inter-valley warfare, highland slave raiding, and seasonal incursions of the lowland states were constants throughout the Nine Kingdoms Period, and the obeisance of resentful Kungian and Phet tributaries, whose cultures conceived of the highlanders as barbarians, always hung in the balance when their overlords suffered humiliations or defeats. By the advent of the Late Kungian Period, the Nanpkat civilisation had been weakened from invasion by the Oegun steppe tribes, and eclipsed by the younger southwestern valley-states of Yotkuy and Ayyutjep. Zomi tributaries in modern-day Lavana gradually broke away, and Zomi hegemony would henceforth be confined to Phet and the uppermost valleys of northwest Kuthina.