Definition of "Shan"

The Thai proper are related to the Shans of Burma, the Siamese of Thailand and the Lao of Indochina. The Chinese segment of the Thai ethnic group is settled in Yünnan Province, where it numbers 580,000. It constitutes the Hsi-shuang-pan-na Autonomous Chou in the southern part of the province and shares the Tehung Autonomous Chou in the west with the Chingpo (Kachin). The Thai of the Hsi-shuang-pan-na Chou speak the Lü dialect, those of the Tehung Chou are more closely related to the Shans of northern Burma.

1956, Theodore Shabad, China's Changing Map: A Political and Economic Geography of The Chinese People's Republic‎, Frederick A. Praeger, page 42

Although holding mainly high upland territory in Burma, the Shan themselves live only in the valleys and in stretches of plain. The surrounding hill country is occupied by relatively primitive hill peoples living in economic symbiosis with the Shan, but there is no clear genetic distinction between the Shan and their neighbours. With minor exceptions modern Shan communities are Buddhist. Most Shan are cultivators of rice; they have a characteristic species of feudal political structure. Shan culture probably diffused southward and westward from west-central China from Han times (c. 200 B.C.) onward.

1968, “SHAN”, in Encyclopedia Britannica‎, volume 20, page 344, column 2