CHIN HILLS

mountainous region in northwestern Myanmar (Burma), extending along the India border and forming the central and widest part of a mountain arc that stretches northward from the Arakan Mountains to the Patkai Range. They vary from 7,000 to 10,000 feet (2,100 to 3,000 m) and reach a high point in Mount Victoria (10,150 feet ). At the Myanmar-India frontier, the Chin Hills adjoin the Mizo Hills and the Manipur Hills of the Purvachal, or Eastern Highlands, of India. Demarcated by the Myittha River on the east and the headstreams of the Kaladan River on the west, the Chin Hills comprise a tangle of forested hill ranges that are broken by deep, narrow gorges, with humid valley bottoms and cooler ridges. Above 3,000 feet (900 m), the tropical forest gives way to oak and pine and, above 7,000 feet (2,100 m), to rhododendron. Slash-and-burn, or shifting, agriculture is practiced on the hillside woods in which the population is concentrated. Clearings are abandoned after two or three years of cultivation to become covered with a useless tangle of bamboo. Jowar millet is the main crop. Corn (maize) is grown in the north, and in the south rice is grown on lower slopes that are terraced with felled timber. The arc of the Arakan Mountains, Chin Hills, and the Patkai Range exemplifies the north-south trend line of Indochina, which has hindered east-west movement and facilitated the populating of the region by Mongoloid peoples from the north. The Chin peoples belong to the southern Mongoloid racial group and are linguistically a branch of the Tibeto-Burmans. The Chin Hills constitute a frontier zone between Myanmar and Indian cultures, and the local tribes remained independent of the British until the end of the 19th century, when the area was occupied to prevent raids on Myanmar's plains. The Chin special division was created by the Myanmar constitution of 1947 and Chin state by the constitution of 1974.