If you plan your Yunnan trip, you had better learn history of Yunnan. Yunnan province has perhaps one of the longest and most fascinating histories of any province in China. In fact, settlements have been dated as far back as a million years from human ancestor remains discovered during the building of the Chengdu-Kunming railway in 1965. Its modern population includes 25 ethnic minorities and demonstrates a cultural richness and diversity that rivals any destination, a result of centuries of conflict and cooperation with its neighbors.

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Yunnan in Prehistoric
The Yuanmou Man, a Homo erectus fossil unearthed by railway engineers in the 1960s, has been determined to be the oldest-known hominid fossil in China.  Fossil remains of Yuanmou Man, discovered in a series of caves in 1965 near the village of Danawu, Yuanmou County, Yunnan Province, were dated to be 1.7 million years old, i.e., from the Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, period. It is not surprising that the earliest human forms in China would be found in precisely Yunnan Province, given the province's warm climate, which is related to its topography and its subtropical latitude on the Tropic of Capricorn.

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Yunnan in the Zhou, Qin Dyasty
By the Neolithic period, human settlements existed in the area of Dianchi Lake, close to modern day Kunming, Yunnan's capital. The inhabitants used stone tools and constructed simple wooden structures.
Several finds in the Lake Dian area near the present-day city of Kunming, which belongs to the Spring and Autumn (BCE 770-476) Period of the Eastern Zhou (BCE 770-221) Dynasty, have been uncovered. The Dian Kingdom, as it was known, is believed to have spoken a language belonging to the Tibeto-Burman family of languages (many of the 15 indigenous ethnic minorities of Yunnan Province have Burmese roots). They buried their dead in vertical pit graves. The province is rich in mountains, rivers and lakes, which would have provided sustenance to many of the animals and plants on which early humans would have depended.

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Yunnan Under the Han, Jin Dynasty
In 109 AD, the Han Dynasty court established Yunnan county, a part of Yizhou (益州) commandery. Because the county seat was south of Mount Yun (云山), the county was named "Yunnan" – literally "south of Yun".
Chinese dynasties of Jin, Liu Song, Southern Qi and Northern Zhou maintain their rules around the commandery in the Kunming area. Southwest Yunnan and the eastern rugged, mountainous areas were still enjoying relative independence, ruled by tribal kings and chieftains with little Chinese influence.

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Nanzhao Kingdom In the Tang Dynasty
In 649 AD the chieftain of the Yi Mengshe tribe, Xinuluo (細奴邏), founded a kingdom in the area of Lake Erhai. In the year AD 737, Piluoge (皮羅閣) united the six zhaos in succession, establishing a new kingdom called Nanzhao.
In 750, Nanzhao invaded the Tang dynasty. In retaliation, the Tang sent an army against Nanzhao in 751, but this army was soundly defeated at Xiaguan. In 754, another army was sent, this time from the north, but it too was defeated. Bolstered by these successes, Nanzhao expanded rapidly, first into Burma, then into the rest of Yunnan, down into northern Laos and Thailand, and finally, north into Sichuan. In 829, Chengdu was taken; it was a great prize, as it enabled Nanzhao to lay claim to the whole of Sichuan province, with its rich paddy fields.
The Tang dynasty retaliated and by 873, Nanzhao had been expelled from Sichuan, and retreated back to Yunnan. Taking Chengdu marked the high point of the Nanzhao kingdom, and it was a watershed: from then on, the Nanzhao Kingdom slowly declined. n 902, the Nanzhao dynasty was overthrown, and it was followed by three other dynasties in quick succession, until Duan Siping seized power in 937 to establish the Kingdom of Dali.

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Dali Kingdom In the Song Dynasty
Dali was a Buddhist Bai kingdom. Established by Duan Siping in 937, it was ruled by a succession of 22 kings until the year 1253, when it was destroyed by an invasion of the Mongol Empire. The capital city was at Dali. In 1274 the Province of Yunnan was created, and the region has since been incorporated within China.

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Yunnan Under the Yuan Dyansty
The Mongols established regular and tight administrative control over Yunnan. In 1253 Möngke Khan of the Mongol Empire dispatched the prince Kublai to take Yunnan. The Mongols swept away numerous native regimes, including the leading Dali kingdom. Later Yunnan became one of the ten provinces set up by Kubilai Khan. Kublai Khan appointed Turkmen Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar governor in Yunnan in 1273.Before that, the area had been ruled by a local king and a Mongol prince under the Great Khan. The Yuan provincial authorities conferred various titles on many native chieftains, who were obliged to pay taxes. When the Mongols were expelled from China in 1368, Yunnan was thrown into chaos and anarchy for a number of years. The Ming dynasty defeated the last of the Yuan loyalists in 1381.

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Yunnan Under the Ming Dynasty
The newly proclaimed Ming dynasty did not send armies into Yunnan until 1381. The central government allowed the general Mu Ying, foster son of dynastic founder Zhu Yuanzhang, to set up a hereditary feudatory system in the province. Throughout the Ming, the Mu family developed tremendous influence in Yunnan.
From the end of the 15th century, the Toungoo Dynasty in Myanmar began encroaching on Yunnan. In the 16th century Chen Yongbin, the governor of Yunnan, held back a Myanmar invasion. After the war, he built eight passes along the border in Tengyue subprefecture to mark the demarcation between the two countries.

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Yunnan Under the Qing Dynasty(1644-1911)
After the fall of the Ming in northern China, Yunnan became the last Southern Ming Dynasty regime headed by Zhu Youlang. Supported by rebels-cum loyalists, he persisted in resistance against the Qing conquest even after the Qing capture of Kunming in 1659. Zhu and his men then fled into Myanmar to seek refuge in Ava, but were treated as prisoners. Zhu's armed followers savaged Upper Myanmar in an attempt to rescue him. General Wu Sangui, then still loyal to the Qing, invaded Myanmar in 1662 with a sizable army, and demanded Zhu's surrender. Although he hesitated, King Pye finally decided to hand Zhu over to avoid hostility. Wu Sangui later turned against the Manchus but died in 1678. Yunnan finally fell to the Qing army in 1681.

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Yunnan under the Republic of China (1912-1949)
Following the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Yunnan came under the control of local warlords, who had more than the usual degree of autonomy due to Yunnan's remoteness. They financed their regime through opium harvesting and traffic. But Yunnan was a province under the central government of the Republic of China in 1930.
Yunnan was transformed by the events of the war against Japan, which caused many east coast refugees and industrial establishments to relocate to the province. It assumed strategic significance, particularly as the Burma Road from Lashio, in Burma to Kunming was a fought over supply line of vital importance to China's war effort.
Since 1949, Yunnan Province has been under the People's Republic of China, Kunming is the capital city of the province.

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