Kunming
Etymology

The name "Kunming" evolved from an ancient ethnicity named Kunming Yi or Kunming Barbarian (昆明夷), which was a branch of Di - Qiang. The Kunming Yi lived in the neighbouring region of Erhai Lake during the Western Han dynasty. The Han dynasty incorporated the territory of the Dian Kingdom and set a division called Yizhou Commandery in 109 BC; the Han dynasty also incorporated the Kunming Yi into Yizhou Commandery soon after. Therefore, Kunming Yi expanded east to the Lake Dian area later. "Kunming" has acted as a place name since the Three Kingdoms period, but the reference was not clear because this ethnicity occupied a large region. In the Yuan dynasty, the central government set "Kunming County" in modern Kunming; the name "Kunming" has continued to this day.

A 2009 research paper proposes that the name "Kunming" of Kunming Yi is a cognate word of " Khmer " and " Khmu " that originally meant 'people'.
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