The kingdom grew out of a small fortified settlement of Pagan founded in 849 by the Burmans, who had recently entered the central plains of the Irrawaddy from the Nanzhao Kingdom of the present-day Yunnan. Over the next two hundred years, the Pagan Kingdom gradually grew to include its immediate surrounding areas. In 1057, King Anawrahta conquered the Thaton Kingdom in Lower Burma. Anawrahta’s successors by the late 12th century had extended their influence farther south into the upper Malay peninsula, at least to the Salween river in the east, below the current China border in the farther north, and to the west, northern Arakan and the Chin Hills...
