The political economy of Shan tea under British colonial rule. "...Tawngpeng State, the major tea-producing area in the Federated Shan States, contained an area of 938 square miles. As of 1939 the population of Tawngpeng was 59,398 and it had a revenue of Rs. 645,634. The State was divided into 16 circles which corresponded as closely as possible to clan-divisions. Geographic features were characterised by hills ranging from five to seven thousand feet in height interspersed with valleys that averaged approximately ten miles in length and from a few hundred yards to a few miles in width. Maurice Collis, a former Burma civil servant, noted that upon approaching Namhsan, the capital of Tawngpeng which lies at the centre of the State at a height of six thousand feet, ?there is a vale and in the midst, ten miles away, is a ridge, on one end of which stands the town of Nam Hsan with the palace over it on a circular hill....The vale is one vast tea garden?. On the lower levels of the hillsides, Palaungs and Shans grow tea whilst higher up Kachins and Lisus practice shifting agriculture. Shans predominate in the valleys where rice is the staple crop..."