Akha Hilltribe Woman

Hill tribe is a term used in Thailand for all of the various tribal peoples who migrated from China and Tibet over the past few centuries.^{[citation needed]} They now inhabit the remote border areas between Northern Thailand, Laos and Burma (Myanmar). These areas are known for their thick forests and mountainous terrain. The six major hill tribes within Thailand are the Akha, Lahu, Karen, Hmong/Miao, Mien/Yao and Lisu, each with a distinct language and culture.

The hill tribes are subsistence farmers who use slash and burn^{[citation needed]} agricultural techniques to farm their heavily forested communities. Tighter conservation of Thailand's virtually depleted forests, however, has forced hill tribe people to abandon their traditional agricultural methods. Traditionally, hill tribes were also a migratory people, leaving land as it became depleted of natural resources.

The Akha are a hill tribe of subsistence farmers known for their artistry. Most of the remaining Akha people are now distributed in small villages among the mountains of China (where they are considered part of the Hani by the government, though this is a subject of some dispute among the Akha themselves), Laos (where they are considered Lao Sung), the Daen Lao Range in Burma, and northern Thailand, where they are one of the six main hill tribes.

The Akha arrived to Thailand, by the demarcation between British India and Thailand in 1905, by the civil war Burma and Laos more have immigrated, with some 80,000 now living in Thailand's northern provinces of Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai at high altitudes. Many of these villages can be visited by tourists on trekking tours from either of these cities. They speak Akha, a language in the Loloish (Yi) branch of the Tibeto-Burman family.

Akha has a very closely related language with the Lisu and Lahu as they once belonged to the Lolo hunter tribe people that once ruled the Paoshan and Teinchung plains before the invasion of Ming Dynasty (A.D 1644) in Yunan, China.^{[citation needed]}

Paan, from the word pān (Hindi: पान, Urdu: پان; lit. "betel vine"), is a stimulating, psychoactive preparation of betel leaf combined with areca nut and/or cured tobacco. Paan is chewed before spitting or swallowing. Paan has many variations. Slaked lime paste is commonly added to bind the leaves. Some South Asian preparations include katha paste or mukhwas to freshen the breath.

Paan is also known as a betel quid. It is mostly consumed in Asia, and elsewhere in the world by some Asian emigrants, with or without tobacco, in an addictive and euphoria-inducing formulation with adverse health effects.

A woman (/ˈwʊmən/), pl: women (/ˈwɪmɨn/) is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. However, the term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "Women's rights". Unlike men, women are typically capable of giving birth.

This article is about the demographic features of the population of Thailand, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

Thailand's population is relatively homogeneous, however, this is changing due to immigration. Ethnic Thais make up the majority of the population with 75 percent of all inhabitants. Thai Chinese make up 14 percent with the remaining 11 percent made up of various other groups.

The language of the central Thai population is the educational language and administrative language. Several other small Tai groups include the Shan, Lue, and Phutai.

Malay and Yawi-speaking Muslim's language of the south comprise another significant minority group (2.3%). Other groups include the Khmer; the Mon, who are substantially assimilated with the Thai; and the Vietnamese. Smaller mountain-dwelling tribes, such as the Hmong and Mein, as well as the Karen, number about 788,024. Some 300,000 Hmong, who ironically have lived this area for more generations than the Thais themselves, are to receive citizenship by 2010.^{[citation needed]}

An ethnic group is a group of people who share a common ethnicity. That is, its members identify with each other through a common heritage, consisting of a common culture, including a shared language or dialect. The group's ethos or ideology may also stress common ancestry, religion, or race.

The process that results in the emergence of an ethnicity is called ethnogenesis.

Thailand ( /ˈtaɪlænd/ TY-land or /ˈtaɪlənd/; Thai: ประเทศไทย, RTGS: Prathet Thai), officially the Kingdom of Thailand (Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย, RTGS: Ratcha Anachak Thai; IPA: [râːt.tɕʰā ʔāːnāːtɕàk tʰāj] ( listen)), formerly known as Siam (Thai: สยาม; RTGS: Sayam), is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.

Humans (known taxonomically as Homo sapiens, Latin for "wise man" or "knowing man") are the only living species in the Homo genus. Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.

Humans have a highly developed brain and are capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving. This mental capability, combined with an erect body carriage that frees the hands for manipulating objects, has allowed humans to make far greater use of tools than any other living species on Earth. Other higher-level thought processes of humans, such as self-awareness, rationality, and sapience, are considered to be defining features of what constitutes a "person".^{[citation needed]}

Humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression, the exchange of ideas, and organization. Humans create complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks, to nations. Social interactions between humans have established an extremely wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which together form the basis of human society. With individuals widespread in every continent except Antarctica, humans are a cosmopolitan species. As of November 2011^[update], the human population was estimated by the United Nations Population Division to be about 7 billion, and by the United States Census Bureau to be about 6.97 billion.

Thailand is a country with many distinct ethnic groups, just like other countries, including the majority Thai and numerous hill tribes living primarily in the mountains of the north. The Thai (or ethnic Tai) and Chinese make up approximately 90% of the nation's population of approximately 67.5 million.

Thailand's population is relatively homogeneous, with more than 98% speaking a Tai language and sharing a common culture. This core population includes ethic Thai (50%), Chinese or partly Chinese (40%), and Malay (5%).