The province of Yunnan lies in the extreme southwest of the Empire, its southern and western borders forming the northern frontiers of Tongking and Burma respectively. On the north it is bordered by Szechuan, and on the east by Kweichau and Kwangsi. It is the third largest province of the Empire, its area measuring 122,000 square miles, but, as elsewhere remarked, owing to the devastatations[sic – meaning devastations] of the Mohammedan rebellion and ensuing plague, its population has been greatly reduced, and now is not more than 6,000,000. Yet its mineral wealth is greater and more varied than that of any other province. Its capital is Yunnan, between which town and Burma a considerable trade is carried on.
1898, Archibald R. Colquhoun, “The Geographical Question”, in China in Transformation, Harper & Brothers, page 14