Burmese Nat belief long predates any official list, and local, household and place-bound Nats have always outnumbered any formal roster the state ever recognized, but the best known organizing structure within the tradition is the group known as the Thirty-Seven Nats, formalized centuries ago under royal patronage as an attempt to bring the country's vast and locally varied spirit population into one coordinated, court-sanctioned pantheon. The Thirty-Seven include figures with real or claimed human origins, historical kings, queens and warriors who died violently and were subsequently venerated as Nats, alongside older nature and place spirits with no human biography attached at all, a mixed roster that reflects the tradition's general pattern of absorbing rather than replacing whatever local spirit belief it encountered.
Mount Popa, an extinct volcanic peak rising sharply from the surrounding plain, functions as the tradition's most visible center, treated as the home of a group of Nats connected to the mountain and hosting the best known Nat festivals, still active pilgrimage and festival events that draw visitors seeking protection, blessing or simply participation in a living, continuously practiced tradition rather than a purely historical curiosity. The mountain's continued active use, alongside the country's Buddhist temples and monasteries rather than in place of them, is itself frequently cited as the clearest single illustration of how thoroughly Nat belief and Theravada Buddhist practice coexist in ordinary Burmese religious life.