LASHIO  , the headquarters of the

superintendent, northern Shan States, Burma, situated in 22° 56' N. and 970 45' E. at an altitude of 3100 ft., on a low spur overlooking the valley of the Nam Yao . It is the present terminus of the Mandalay-Kun Long railway and of the government cart road from Mandalay, from which it is 178 m. distant . It consists of the European station, with court house and quarters for the civil officers; the military police post, the headquarters of the Lashio battalion of military police; the native station, in which the various nationalities, Shans, Burmans, Hindus and Mahommedans, are divided into separate quarters, with reserves for government servants and for the temporary residences of the five sawbwas of the northern Shan States; and a bazaar . Under Burmese rule Lashio was also the centre of authority for the northern Shan States, but the Burmese post in the valley was close to the Nam Yao, in an old Chinese fortified camp . The Lashio valley was formerly very populous; but a rebellion, started by the sawbwa of Hsenwi, about ten years before the British occupation, ruined it, and it is only slowly approaching the prosperity it formerly enjoyed; pop . (1901) 2565 . The annual rainfall averages 54 in .