[1] They mostly reside in the country's northwestern hills, centred around Katha, and are ethnolinguistically related to the Ganan and Sak peoples.

[3] The Kadu likely descended from the Qiongdu [zh] (邛都), a sub-group of 'southwestern barbarians' described in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian.

[3] With the rise of the Pagan kingdom, by the 12th and 13th centuries, the Kadu inhabited the border areas between the present-day Sichuan and Yunnan provinces of China and Burma.

[3] By the mid-13th century, the Kadu had diverged from the Sak (or Thet people), who now reside in southwestern Myanmar's Rakhine State.

[3] By the early 20th century, most Kadu had assimilated and adopted Burmese customs, including Theravada Buddhism.