KUNMING, ARCHDIOCESE of. — The civil province of Yunnan, in southwest China, was detached from the mission of Szechwan and erected as an apostolic vicariate, under the name of Yunnan, on 28 Aug. 1840, and was entrusted, like the mother mission, to the Society of the Foreign Missions of Paris.
On 28 July 1868 it ceded the district of Weisting to the mission of Lhasa or Tibet, Kangting (v.); on 22 Nov. 1929, 33 civil subprefectures were detached from it in order to establish, with them, Tali (v.); and on 8 Apr. 1935, another 11 civil subprefectures, with which the apostolic prefecture of Chaotung was erected. On 3 Dec. 1924 it took the name of the apostolic vicariate of Yunnanfu, after the provincial capital, a city which in recent years had once again come to be called K. On 11 Apr. 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, the apostolic vicariate of Yunnanfu was elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese, with Tali as its suffragan, and on that occasion it also received, ecclesiastically, the name K.
It has an area of 150,000 sq km. As of 30 June 1950, out of a population of approximately 8,000,000 inhabitants, there were 11,456 Catholics and 1,652 catechumens. In addition to the archbishop, there were 24 missionaries from Paris; 22 Chinese secular priests; 5 Salesian priests, 2 brothers, and 1 scholastic; 2 foreign and 2 Chinese Sulpician priests assigned to the Major Seminary; and 1 Camillian priest and 2 brothers. The Minor Seminary had 36 students, and the Major Seminary 10. The auxiliary personnel consisted of 19 foreign sisters, 75 Chinese and 2 Annamite sisters, 18 catechists, and 18 baptizers. The institutions included 3 foundling homes with 261 children, 3 orphanages with 175 residents, 1 hospice for the elderly with 338 patients, 1 boarding school for boys with elementary and secondary schools and 680 pupils, and a boarding school for girls, likewise with elementary and secondary schools and 467 pupils. Another 8 elementary schools had 976 children, and 3 secondary schools had 396 students; 2 kindergartens cared for 130 children, while 27 schools of prayer and elementary instruction had 620 attendees.
The civil province of Yunnan, detached, like many others, from the diocese of Nanjing on 15 Oct. 1696, was supposed to have its own apostolic vicar, but in fact it had none, and, united with the province of Kweichow, it subsequently passed in 1715 to the Ordinaries of Szechwan, in whose hands it remained until 1840. There were, moreover, very few Christians there. Under Mons. Pérocheau, apostolic vicar of Szechwan from 1838 to 1856, there was only one Chinese priest in Yunnan, named Wang.