By the mid-10th century, Burmans at Pagan had expanded irrigation-based cultivation while borrowing extensively from the Pyus' predominantly Buddhist culture. Pagan's early iconography, architecture and scripts suggest little difference between early Burman and Pyu cultural forms. Moreover, no sharp ethnic distinction between Burmans and linguistically linked Pyus seems to have existed. The city was one of several competing city-states until the late 10th century when it grew in authority and grandeur. By Anawrahta's accession in 1044, Pagan had grown into a small principality—about north to south and about from east to west, comprising roughly the present districts of Mandalay, Meiktila, Myingyan, Kyaukse, Yamethin, Magwe, Sagaing, and the riverine portions of Minbu and Pakkoku. To the north lay the Nanzhao Kingdom, and to the east still largely uninhabited Shan Hills, to the south and the west Pyus, and farther south still, Mons. The size of the principality is about 6% of that of modern Burma/Myanmar.