Its territory comprises modern-day provinces of Điện Biên, Lai Châu, Sơn La as well as western parts of Lào Cai and Yên Bái.

In 1067 they sent a tribute gift to Dai Viet court of king Ly Thanh Tong (r. 1054–1072): gold, silver, aromatic woods, rhinoceros horns and elephant tusks.

After driving out the Chinese in 1427, the Vietnamese emperor Lê Lợi sent two campaigns in 1431 and 1432 into the region and incorporated Black Tai territories in Dai Viet's province of Hưng Hoá.

In Gia Hưng District (Sơn La and Lai Châu), the number of villages grew by five times.

[6] The incorporation of Black Tai lands into Dai Viet's territories provided significant economic benefits: Cobalt salts, the main ingredient for Vietnamese blue-white ceramics, were sneaked in large quantity from Yunnanese mines to Dai Viet through Hưng Hoá, which before 1433 the cobalt salts had to be imported from Middle East.