Mengla County (; Tai Lue: , ''Mueang La''; lo, ເມືອງລ້າ; th, เมืองล้า) is a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

under the jurisdiction of the

Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture Xishuangbanna, Sibsongbanna or Sipsong Panna ( Tham: , New Tai Lü script: ; ; th, สิบสองปันนา; lo, ສິບສອງພັນນາ; shn, သိပ်းသွင်ပၼ်းၼႃး; my, စစ်ဆောင်� ...

, in far southern

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

, China. ''Meng'' is a variation of ''

Mueang Mueang ( th, เมือง ''mɯ̄ang'', ), Muang ( lo, ເມືອງ ''mɯ́ang'', ; Tai Nuea: ᥛᥫᥒᥰ ''muang''), Mong ( shn, ''mə́ŋ'', ), Meng () or Mường (Vietnamese), were pre-modern semi-independent city-states or principal ...

''.

Name

"Mongla", "Mengla" and "Meungla" are different romanizations of the same Tai word. Thus, to differentiate Mengla County in China and Mong La Township in Myanmar, the locals call the former Greater Mengla/Mongla while the latter Lesser Mongla/Mengla.

Administrative divisions

Mengla County has 8 towns and 2

townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

. *8 Towns: Mengla (), Mengpeng (), Mengman (), Menglun (), Mohan (), Mengban (), Guanlei (), and

Yiwu Yiwu () is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Jinhua in Central Zhejiang Province, East China. As of the 2020 census, the city had 1,859,390 inhabitants and its built-up (or metro) area, joined with that of the neighboring Dongy ...

() *2 Ethnic Townships: Yi Xiangming () and Yao Yaoqu ()

Biodiversity

Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), founded in 1959, is located in Mengla County, Xishuangbanna at 21º55' N, 101º15'E, covering an area of 1125 ha. Over 13,000 species of tropical plants ...

, of the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republi ...

(CAS), is located in Menglun in Mengla County, covering an area of more than 1000 ha. Over 13,000 species of

tropical plant Tropical vegetation is any vegetation in tropical latitudes. Plant life that occurs in climates that are warm year-round is in general more biologically diverse that in other latitudes. Some tropical areas may receive abundant rain the whole ye ...

s are preserved in its 35 living collections. The last

Indochinese tiger The Indochinese tiger is a population of the '' Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies that is native to Southeast Asia. This population occurs in Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. In 2011, the population was thought to comprise 342 individuals, includin ...

in the wild in China is believed to have been killed near Mengla in 2009. The perpetrator is believed to have been sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for this. A tiny frog, ''

Raorchestes menglaensis ''Raorchestes menglaensis'' (Zhishihe's bubble-nest frog or Mengla small treefrog) is a species of frog in the family Rhacophoridae. Only known from its type locality, Zhishihe in Mengla County, it is endemic to Yunnan, China, although it is exp ...

'' (known as the Zhishihe's bubble-nest frog or Mengla small treefrog) is only known from its type locality, Zhishihe in Mengla County.

Climate

Mengla has a

tropical savanna climate Tropical savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification categories ''Aw'' (for a dry winter) and ''As'' (for a dry summer). The driest month has less than of p ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''Aw'') with strong

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...

al influences. Summer is long and there is virtually no "winter" as such; instead, there is a

dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The te ...

(December thru April) and

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

(May thru October). The coolest month is December, averaging , while the warmest is June, at ; the annual mean is . However, high temperatures reach their peak in April before the onset of the monsoon from the Indian Ocean.

Transport

*Nearest airport is Xishuangbanna Gasa *

China National Highway 213 China National Highway 213 (G213) runs from Ceke, Inner Mongolia, to Mohan, on the border with Laos, in Yunnan. It is in length and runs via Chengdu, Sichuan and Kunming, Yunnan. Before the 2013 Highway Planning, the route started in Lanzhou, ...

* Asian Highway Network AH3 * Kunming-Bangkok Expressway *

Yuxi–Mohan Railway The Yuxi–Mohan railway or Yumo railway (), is a Chinese section of the China–Laos railway in Yunnan Province of southwest China. The line runs from Yuxi in central Yunnan to Mohan, a town in Mengla County on the border with Laos in the Xish ...

References

External links

Mengla County Official Website
{{Authority control County-level divisions of Xishuangbanna Prefecture