Padaung Hilltribe

The Padaung are also called "Kayan" and are a subgroup of the Red Karen (Karenni) people, a Tibeto-Burman ethnic minority of Burma (Myanmar). The Kayan consists of the following groups: Kayan Lahwi (also called Padaung), Kayan Ka Khaung (Gekho), Kayan Lahta, Kayan Ka Ngan, Kayan Gebar, Kayan Kakhi and Kayaw.

Padaung (Yan Pa Doung) is a Shan term for the Kayan Lahwi (the group whose women wear the brass neck coils). The Kayan residents in Mae Hong Son Province in Northern Thailand refer to themselves as Kayan and object to being called Padaung. In The Hardy Padaungs (1967) Khin Maung Nyunt, one of the first authors to use the term "Kayan", says that the Padaung prefer to be called Kayan. On the other hand, Pascal Khoo Thwe calls this people Padaung in his 2002 memoir, 'From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey'.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s due to conflict with the military regime in Burma, many Kayan tribes fled to the Thai border area, where they live with an uncertain legal status, and villages displaying Padaung women with brass neck coils for tourist dollars appeared.According to U Aung Roe Kayan number about 40,000 in Shan State (around the Pekon Township area) and 20,000 in Kayah State (around Demawso and Loikaw). A 2004 estimate puts the population at approximately 130,000.

The Padaung attract many visitors on account of their long-necked women. Allegedly the tradition of beautifying women by adding brass rings to their necks has been preserved largely for generating tourism. Although it seems like the neck is cruelly elongated, it is the collarbone which has been depressed rather than the neck is stretched and weakened.

In Thailand about 600 Kayan reside in the three villages open to tourists in Mae Hong Son, or in the Ban Mai Nai Soi refugee camp. The largest is Huay Pu Keng, on the Pai river, close to the Thai Burma border. Huai Seau Tao is a commercial village opened in 1995. Many of the residents of Nai Soi Kayan Tayar moved into the Karenni refugee camp in September 2008, but a few families remain there.

In recent years there has been a spread of villages displaying long neck women in Northern Thailand. Ban Yapa, near Thaton, is one and there are others in Chiang Dao and Chiang Rai province.  Even in the beach resort Pattaya it is now possible to see long neck women.

Many people regard the long neck villages as human zoos.