Xishuangbanna Dai Auto-nomous Prefecture is located in the southern part of Yunnan Province, over 500 kilometres from Kun-ming, the provincial capital and covering an area of 25,000 square kilometres. It is bounded on the south by Laos and Burma, with River Lancang running through the whole region.
This autonomous prefecture has under its jurisdiedinnthres coun-ties :Jinghong, which is its capital, Mengla andMedghai .Yuhjing-hong, the county seat of Jinghong, means in the Dai language .”a city at dawn”. It is now open to foreign tourists as an excursion centre. The whole region has a temperate and moist climate, fit for the growth of all kinds of vegetation. This wooded country of exotic trees and flowers is the haunt of rare birds and animals-a para-dise in which all living beings thrive and flou-rish.
Xishuangbanna is a multinational prefecture. Of its population of 600,000one third are Dais, the rest being Hanis, Hans, Blangs, Lahus, Yaos, Was, Miaos, Jinos, Yis and others.