Shan State Special region 4


Shan State Special Region 4, commonly known as Mongla area or Lesser Mongla area, is a special region administrated by Peace and Solidarity Committee of Shan State-East. It covers territories of the entire Mong La Township, eastern part of Mong Hpayak Township and to the north borders the northern part of Wa State.
The indigenous peoples of this region are Blang, Pyin, Akha, Hani, Lahu and Tai Lue people, etc. while the lingua franca is Mandarin Chinese.
It was established by sent-down youth U Sai Leun. Since its active involvement into casinos and endangered wild-animal trafficking, it has been an issue for the Chinese government, which closed the several times. It also sent police cross border to destruct a casino there, under the acknowledgement of Burmese government. This special region is notorious in southwest Yunnan as they send casino advertisement spam SMS to Chinese cellphones. Organized crime used to be common in this region.
Sai Leun maintained a good relationship with Burmese army as the Tatmadaw units benefit financially from it.

Name

Mongla, Mengla or Meungla are different Romanization of the same Tai word, both the e and the o here should be pronounced like the Scottish accent pronunciation of u in bucks. Thus, to differentiate Mengla County in China and Mong La Township/settlement in Myanmar the locals call the former Greater Mengla/Mongla while the latter Lesser Mongla/Mengla.

Administrative divisions