Chin State

Chin State (, tɕhɪ́ɰ̃ pjìnɛ̀) is a state in western Myanmar. Chin State is bordered by Sagaing Division and Magway Division to the east, Rakhine State to the south, the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh to the west, and the Indian states of Mizoram to the west and Manipur to the north. The population of Chin State is about 478,801 according to the 2014 census. The capital of the state is Hakha. The state is a mountainous region with few transportation links. Chin State is sparsely populated and remains one of the least developed areas of the country. Chin State has the highest poverty rate of 73% as per the released figures from the first official survey. The official radio broadcasting dialect of Chin is Falam. There are 53 different subtribes and languages in Chin State. There are nine townships in Chin State: Hakha, Thantlang, Falam, Tedim, Tonzang, Matupi, Mindat, Kanpetlet and Paletwa townships. In 1896, Mindat and Kanpetlet were placed under Pakokku Hill Tracts District of British Burma later emerged into Chin Hills. Only Paletwa Township became a part of Arakan Hill Tracts of British Burma. The Chin people entered the Chin Hills in the first millennium 1200 AD as part of the wider migration of Chin peoples into the area. For much of history, the sparsely populated Chin Hills were ruled by local chiefs. Some historians (Arthur Phayre, Tun Nyein) put Pateikkaya in eastern Bengal, thus wrongly placing the entire Chin Hills under Pagan suzerainty but others, like Harvey, citing stone inscriptions, properly put it near the eastern Chin Hills. (Burmese Chronicles report the kings of Pateikkaya as Indian though the ethnicity of the subjects is not explicitly cited.) Accordingly, since the first human settlement in the region later called Chin Hills as early as 10 century CE, no other external military conquest nor tributary influence was noticed either in oral traditions or other historical inscriptions but the rule and leadership of local native chiefs as listed above until the British advancement in the late 19th century.