page_title: Akha people
section_title: Population distribution and indigenous status
hierarchical_section_title: Akha people / Population distribution and indigenous status
caption_attribution_description: ethnie Akha, Laos nord.
context_page_description: The Akha are an ethnic group who live in small villages at higher elevations in the mountains of Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Yunnan Province in China. They made their way from China into Southeast Asia during the early 20th century. Civil war in Burma and Laos resulted in an increased flow of Akha immigrants and there are now 80,000 people living in Thailand's northern provinces of Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai.
  The Akha speak Akha, a language in the Loloish branch of the Tibeto-Burman family. The Akha language is closely related to Lisu and it is thought that the Akha who once ruled the Baoshan and Tengchong plains in Yunnan before the invasion of the Ming Dynasty in 1644.
context_section_description: Akha live in villages in the mountains of southwest China, eastern Myanmar, western Laos, northwestern Vietnam, and northern Thailand. In all these countries they are an ethnic minority. The population of the Akha today is roughly 400,000. A decline in village size in Thailand since the 1930s has been noted and attributed to the deteriorating ecological and economic situation in the mountains.
  The Akha are often classified by the Chinese government as part of the Hani, an official national minority. The Akha are closely related to the Hani, but consider themselves a distinct group and often resist being subsumed under that identity. In Thailand, they are classified as one of the six hill tribes, a term used for all of the various tribal peoples who migrated from China and Tibet over the past few centuries and who now inhabit the dense forests on the borders between Thailand, Laos, and Burma. Few Akha in Thailand are citizens and most are registered as aliens. There is an oft cited lack of political or state infrastructure to address Akha, or any other indigenous issues in Thailand.
  The Akha are not always treated or addressed as equals by the people whose countries they now inhabit. Speakers of Tai languages in Myanmar and Thailand refer to them as "gaw" or "ekaw" (ikaw/ikho), terms which the Akha view as derogatory. In Laos the colloquial term used by Tai speakers to refer to the Akha is "kho" (ko), often prefaced by the word "kha", which means "slave."
caption: An Akha girl in Laos
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