It is bordered by China to the north and east (Tibet and Yunnan, respectively), Shan State to the south, and Sagaing Region and India (Arunachal Pradesh) to the west.

Leach claimed that the Chinese referred to the Jingpo as Pu Man (蒲蠻) as a leftover from Nanzhao descriptions of Mon-Khmer speakers.

What is now Kachin State was historically inhabited by a diverse population of various ethnolinguistic groups, including the Rawang, the Lisu, the Jingpo, the Zaiwa, the Lashi/Lachik and the Lawngwaw/Maru, all of whom had overlapping territories and varying social structures.

[9] The pre-independence Burmese government under Aung San reached the Panglong Agreement with the Shan, Kachin, and Chin peoples on 12 February 1947.

The agreement accepted "Full autonomy in internal administration for the Frontier Areas" in principle and envisioned the creation of a Kachin State by the Constituent Assembly.

[10] The vast mountainous hinterlands are predominantly Kachin, whereas the more densely populated railway corridor and southern valleys are mostly Shan and Bamar.

[citation needed] Before the British rule, roughly 75% of all Kachin jadeite ended up in China, where it was prized much more highly than the local Chinese nephrite.

And then in 2011 the new government led by President Thein Sein, broke the cease fire agreement which was agreed upon by the former military government and the Kachin ethnic armed group in 1994, resuming fighting against the Kachin who are living in the northern part of Myanmar, northern part of Shan, near the China border on 9 June 2011.

Aside from the major towns and railway corridor, Kachin State has been virtually independent from the mid-1960s through 1994, with an economy based on agriculture and trade with China, including of jade.

This ceasefire immediately resulted in the creation of numerous splinter factions from the KIO and KIA of groups opposed to the SPDC's controversial peace accord, and the political landscape remains highly unstable.

The KIO together with 12 other ethnic groups demanded amendments of the draft to be more in line with a federal democratic system and to give autonomy to states (Zaw Oo & Win Min 2007).

The seventeen-year ceasefire broke down and fighting between the Kachin Independence Organization and the government resumed in June 2011 after the Kachin Independent Army disallowed the government's order to transform into a Border Guard Force and it claimed that the regime's 2008 Constitution lacked federal democratic principles and equal political rights for ethnic minorities based on the Panglong Agreement.

Initial reports suggested that from June to September 2011 a total of 5,580 Internally Displaced Persons from 1,397 households arrived at 38 IDP camps under Myanmar Government control.

[11] In August 2012 thousands of Kachin refugees were forced by the Chinese Government back into Myanmar despite the continued fighting there; NGOs like Human Rights Watch called to cease such action and pointed the illegality of doing so under international law.

[14] Religious minority communities include Christians (33.8%), Muslims (1.6%), Hindus (0.4%), and animists (0.2%) who collectively comprise the remainder of Kachin State's population.

In a speech delivered on 2016, Min Aung Hlaing gave the ethnic composition of the Kachin state as follows: Bamar – 29.2%, Shan – 23.6%, Jingphaw – 18.97%, Lisu – 7%, Rawam – 5%, Lawwaw – 3.33%, Lacheik – 2.89%, Zaikwa – 1.57% and Others – 8%.

Over 600 tons of jade stones, which were unearthed from Lone-Khin area in Hpakant Township in Kachin State, had been displayed in Myanmar Naypyidaw to be sold in November 2011.

[20] In 2006, the Prime Minister General Thein Sein made an agreement with the China Power Investment Cooperation in Beijing to build seven dams in Kachin State.

[23] Kachin State is the world's largest source of rare earths, which are critical in the supply chains of many multinational corporations, including Tesla and General Motors.

[25][24] Since the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, mining of rare earths in Kachin State has accelerated, due to lack of proper oversight.

[25] As of March 2022[update], 2,700 mining collection pools scattered across 300 separate locations were found in Kachin State, encompassing the area of Singapore, and an exponential increase from 2016.

In general, the health care infrastructure outside of Yangon and Mandalay is extremely poor but is especially worse in remote areas like Kachin State.