Portal:Myanmar

ကြိုဆိုပါတယ်။ / Welcome to the Myanmar Portal

Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has a population of about 55 million. It is bordered by India and Bangladesh to its northwest, China to its northeast, Laos and Thailand to its east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to its south and southwest. The country's capital city is Naypyidaw, and its largest city is Yangon (formerly Rangoon).

Myanmar is a member of the East Asia Summit, Non-Aligned Movement, ASEAN, and BIMSTEC, but it is not a member of the Commonwealth of Nations despite once being part of the British Empire. Myanmar is a Dialogue Partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The country is very rich in natural resources, such as jade, gems, oil, natural gas, teak and other minerals, as well as endowed with renewable energy, having the highest solar power potential compared to other countries of the Great Mekong Subregion. However, Myanmar has long suffered from instability, factional violence, corruption, poor infrastructure, as well as a long history of colonial exploitation with little regard to human development. In 2013, its GDP (nominal) stood at US$56.7 billion and its GDP (PPP) at US$221.5 billion. The income gap in Myanmar is among the widest in the world, as a large proportion of the economy is controlled by cronies of the military junta. Myanmar is one of the least developed countries. Since 2021, more than 600,000 people have been displaced across Myanmar due to the civil war post-coup, with more than three million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are over 1.3 million people counted as refugees and asylum seekers, and 3.5 million people displaced internally as of December 2024. (Full article...)

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Image 1

Shan State (Shan: မိူင်းတႆး, Möng Tai; Burmese: ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, pronounced [ʃáɰ̃ pjìnɛ̀]) is a state of Myanmar. Shan State borders China (Yunnan) to the north, Laos (Louang Namtha and Bokeo Provinces) to the east, and Thailand (Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son Provinces) to the south, and five administrative divisions of Myanmar in the west (Kachin State, Mandalay Region, Kayin State, Kayah State, and Sagaing Region). The largest of the 14 administrative divisions by land area, Shan State covers 155,800 km², almost a quarter of the total area of Myanmar. The state gets its name from the Burmese name for the Tai peoples: "Shan people". The Tai (Shan) constitute the majority among several ethnic groups that inhabit the area. Shanland is largely rural, with only three cities of significant size: Lashio, Kengtung, and the capital, Taunggyi. Taunggyi is 150.7 km northeast of the nation's capital Naypyitaw.

The Shan state, with many ethnic groups, is home to several armed ethnic groups. While the military government has signed ceasefire agreements with most groups, vast areas of the state, especially those east of the Salween River, remain outside the central government's control, and in recent years have come under heavy ethnic-Han Chinese economic and political influence. Other areas are under the control of military groups such as the Shan State Army. (Full article...)
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The royal chronicles of Myanmar (Burmese: မြန်မာ ရာဇဝင် ကျမ်းများ [mjəmà jàzəwɪ̀ɰ̃ tɕáɰ̃ mjá]; also known as Burmese chronicles) are detailed and continuous chronicles of the monarchy of Myanmar (Burma). The chronicles were written on different media such as parabaik paper, palm leaf, and stone; they were composed in different literary styles such as prose, verse, and chronograms. Palm-leaf manuscripts written in prose are those that are commonly referred to as the chronicles. Other royal records include administrative treatises and precedents, legal treatises and precedents, and censuses.

The chronicle tradition was maintained in the country's four historical polities: Upper Burma, Lower Burma, Arakan and the Shan states. The majority of the chronicles did not survive the country's numerous wars as well as the test of time. The most complete extant chronicles are those of Upper Burma-based dynasties, with the earliest extant chronicle dating from the 1280s and the first standard national chronicle from the 1720s. (Full article...)
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Fireworks being attached to a hot air balloon at the fireworks competition during Tazaungdaing in Taunggyi

The Tazaungdaing Festival (Burmese: တန်ဆောင်တိုင်ပွဲတော်, also known as the Festival of Lights and spelt Tazaungdine Festival), held on the full moon day of Tazaungmon, the eighth month of the Burmese calendar, is celebrated as a national holiday in Myanmar and marks the end of the rainy season. It also marks the beginning of the Kathina (Kahtein in Burmese) season, during which monks are offered new robes and alms.

The festival's origins predate the introduction of Buddhism to Burma, and are believed to stem from the Kattika festival, which honors the guardian planets in Indian astrology. (Full article...)
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Myitkyina (Burmese: မြစ်ကြီးနားမြို့; MLCTS: mrac kri: na: mrui., pronounced [mjɪʔtɕíná]; (Eng; mitchinar) Jinghpaw: Myitkyina, [mjìtkjí̠ná]) is the capital city of Kachin State in Myanmar (Burma), located 1,480 kilometers (920 mi) from Yangon, and 785 kilometers (488 mi) from Mandalay [1]. In Burmese it means "near the big river", and Myitkyina is on the west bank of the Ayeyarwady River, just below 40 kilometers (25 mi) from Myit-son (Burmese for confluence) of its two headstreams (the Mali and N'mai rivers). It is the northernmost river port and railway terminus in Myanmar. The city is served by Myitkyina Airport. (Full article...)
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Wing of the dragonfly Burmalindenia in a cabochon of Burmese amber, showing typical red colouration of the amber. Scale bar = 5mm

Burmese amber, also known as Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. The amber is dated to around 100 million years ago, during the latest Albian to earliest Cenomanian ages of the mid-Cretaceous period. The amber is of significant palaeontological interest due to the diversity of flora and fauna contained as inclusions, particularly arthropods including insects and arachnids but also birds, lizards, snakes, frogs and fragmentary dinosaur remains. The amber has been known and commercially exploited since the first century AD, and has been known to science since the mid-nineteenth century. Research on the deposit has attracted controversy due to the potential role of the amber trade in funding internal conflict in Myanmar and hazardous working conditions in the mines where it is collected. (Full article...)
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Forrest's pika (Ochotona forresti) is a species of mammal in the pika family, Ochotonidae. It is found in Bhutan, China, India, and Myanmar. The summer dorsal pelage and ventral pelage are dark rufous or blackish brown, and the winter dorsal pelage is a grayish brown, slightly lighter in tone than the ventral pelage. It is a generalist herbivore. It was assessed by the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species as insufficiently known in 1994, as near threatened in 1996, and re-assessed in 2008 as a species of least concern. (Full article...)
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Protesters in Yangon with a banner that reads "Non-violence: National Movement" in Burmese, in the background is Shwedagon Pagoda

The Saffron Revolution (Burmese: ရွှေဝါရောင်တော်လှန်ရေး, romanized: Shwaywarraung Tawlhaanrayy; [sw̥èi wà jàʊɰ̃ tɔ̀ l̥àɰ̃ jéi]) was a series of economic and political protests and demonstrations that took place during August, September, and October 2007 in Myanmar. The protests were triggered by the decision of the national military government to remove subsidies on the sales prices of fuel. The national government is the only supplier of fuels and the removal of the price subsidy immediately caused diesel and petrol prices to increase by 66–100% and the price of compressed natural gas for buses to increase 500% in less than a week.

The various protests were led by students, political activists, including women, and Buddhist monks and took the form of a campaign of nonviolent resistance, sometimes also called civil resistance. (Full article...)
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Mt. Khakaborazi viewed from the south

Hkakabo Razi (Burmese: ခါကာဘိုရာဇီ, pronounced [kʰàkàbò ɹàzì]; simplified Chinese: 开加博峰; traditional Chinese: 開加博峯; pinyin: Kāijiābó Fēng) is believed to be Myanmar's highest mountain. The 5,881-meter (19,295 ft)-tall mountain is the highest mountain in Southeast Asia as well. It is located in the northern Myanmar state of Kachin in an outlying subrange of the Greater Himalayan mountain system near the border tripoint with India (Arunachal Pradesh) and China (Tibet Autonomous Region). Its highest status has recently been challenged by 5,870-meter (19,260 ft)-tall Gamlang Razi, located about 6.6 kilometers (4.1 mi) WSW on the Chinese border.

Administratively, it lies in Dahangdan, Nogmung Township, Putao District, Kachin state.
The peak is enclosed within Khakaborazi National Park. The park is entirely mountainous and is characterized by broad-leaved evergreen tropical rain forest at low altitudes, a sub-tropical temperate zone from 8,000 to 9,000 ft (2,400–2,700 m), then broad-leaved, semi-deciduous forest and finally needle-leaved evergreen, snow forest. Above 11,000 ft (3,400 m), the highest forest zone is alpine, different from the forest not only in kind but in history and origin. Still higher, around 15,000 ft (4,600 m), cold, barren, windswept terrain and permanent snow and glaciers dominate. At around 17,500 ft (5,300 m), there is a large ice cap with several outlet glaciers. (Full article...)
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The Tatmadaw, also known as the Sit-Tat, is the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include the Myanmar Police Force, the Border Guard Forces, the Myanmar Coast Guard, and the People's Militia Units. Since independence in 1948, the Tatmadaw has faced significant ethnic insurgencies, especially in Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, and Shan states. General Ne Win took control of the country in a 1962 coup d'état, attempting to build an autarkic society called the Burmese Way to Socialism. Following the violent repression of nationwide protests in 1988, the military agreed to free elections in 1990, but ignored the resulting victory of the National League for Democracy and imprisoned its leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The 1990s also saw the escalation of the conflict involving Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State due to RSO attacks on the Tatmadaw forces, which saw the Rohingya minority facing oppression and, starting in 2017, genocide.

In 2008, the Tatmadaw again rewrote Myanmar's constitution, installing the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in the 2010 elections, which were boycotted by most opposition groups. Political reforms over the next half-decade culminated in a sweeping NLD victory in the 2015 election; after the USDP lost another election in 2020, the Tatmadaw annulled the election and deposed the civilian government. The Tatmadaw has been widely accused by international organizations of human rights violation and crimes against humanity; including ethnic cleansing, political repression, torture, sexual assault, war crimes, extrajudicial punishments (including summary executions) and massacre of civilians involved in peaceful political demonstrations. The Tatmadaw has long operated as a state within a state. (Full article...)
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U Gambira in 2012

Nyi Nyi Lwin (Burmese: ညီညီလွင်; MLCTS: Nyi Nyi Lwang; born 19 June 1979), more widely known by his monastic name U Gambira (Burmese: ရှင်ဂမ္ဘီရ), is a former Buddhist monk, activist and a leader of the All-Burma Monks' Alliance, a group which helped lead the 2007 protests against Burma's military government. Following the protests, he went into hiding and published two editorials critical of the Burmese government in The Washington Post and The Guardian on 4 November 2007. He was arrested the same day.

In November 2008, he was sentenced to 68 years in prison, including 12 years hard labour; the sentence was reduced to 65 years on appeal. Gambira reportedly protested his imprisonment by organising chanting with other imprisoned monks, boycotting his trial, and going on hunger strike. Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also protested his imprisonment. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that former Burmese actress Honey Nway Oo turned rebel and took up arms against the military junta following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état?
... that the Myanmar Photo Archive (example photograph shown) revealed "a side of modern Myanmar that, until very recently, remained hidden in dusty attics"?
... that Myinsaing withstood a ten-week siege by the Mongols because its three brother leaders bribed the invaders to withdraw?
... that squatters in Myanmar were punished for protesting against the 2021 coup d'état by being evicted?
... that Molly Burman resumed releasing music three years later after finding that "Happy Things" had accrued a million streams on Spotify?
... that the mission of the United Nations special envoy on Myanmar has been called a "diplomatic graveyard"?
... that the Burmese Buddhist monk Sagyo Thu-Myat successfully lobbied for the recalibration of the Burmese calendar?
... that Burma the elephant once escaped Auckland Zoo?

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The following are images from various Myanmar-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Temples at Mrauk U, the capital of the Mrauk U Kingdom, which ruled over what is now Rakhine State (from History of Myanmar)
Image 2Mount Popa, a dormant volcano in the Central Lowlands (from Geography of Myanmar)
Image 3British soldiers remove their shoes at the entrance of Shwedagon Pagoda. To the left, a sign reads "Foot wearing is strictly prohibited" in Burmese, English, Tamil, and Urdu. (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 4Political map of Burma (Myanmar) c. 1450 CE. (from History of Myanmar)
Image 5Recorder's Court on Sule Pagoda Road, with the Sule Pagoda at the far end, Rangoon, 1868. Photographer: J. Jackson. (from History of Myanmar)
Image 619th-century funeral cart and spire, which would form part of the procession from the home to the place of cremation (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 7Mountains near Pindaya on the Shan Plateau (from Geography of Myanmar)
Image 8Hlei pyaingbwè - a Burmese regatta (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 9Protesters in Yangon carrying signs reading "Free Daw Aung San Suu Kyi" on 8 February 2021 (from History of Myanmar)
Image 10Protesters in Yangon with a banner that reads "non-violence: national movement" in Burmese. In the background is Shwedagon Pagoda. (from History of Myanmar)
Image 11A wedding procession, with the groom and bride dressed in traditional Burmese wedding clothes, reminiscent of royal attire (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 12Grandfather Island, Dawei (from Geography of Myanmar)
Image 13Aerial view of a burned Rohingya village in Rakhine state, September 2017 (from History of Myanmar)
Image 14A bull fight, 19th-century watercolour (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 15An ear-piercing ceremony at Mahamuni Buddha in Mandalay (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 16The paddle steamer Ramapoora (right) of the British India Steam Navigation Company on the Rangoon river having just arrived from Moulmein. 1895. Photographers: Watts and Skeen. (from History of Myanmar)
Image 17Aung San Suu Kyi addresses crowds at the NLD headquarters shortly after her release. (from History of Myanmar)
Image 18Boxing match, 19th-century watercolour (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 19British invasion of Burma in 1824 (from History of Myanmar)
Image 20British soldiers dismantling cannons belonging to King Thibaw's forces, Third Anglo-Burmese War, Ava, 27 November 1885. Photographer: Hooper, Willoughby Wallace (1837–1912). (from History of Myanmar)
Image 21The shores of Irrawaddy River at Nyaung-U, Bagan (from Geography of Myanmar)
Image 22Sculpture of Myanmar mythical lion (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 23A wide range of Burmese lacquerware from Bagan (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 24Saint Mary's Cathedral in Downtown Yangon is the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in Burma. (from Culture of Myanmar)
$Image 25A large fracture on the Mingun Pahtodawgyi caused by the 1839 Ava earthquake. (from Geography of Myanmar)$

Image 25A large fracture on the Mingun Pahtodawgyi caused by the 1839 Ava earthquake. (from Geography of Myanmar)
Image 26British soldiers on patrol in the ruins of the Burmese town of Bahe during the advance on Mandalay, January 1945 (from History of Myanmar)
Image 27A theatrical performance of the Mon dance (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 28Pagan Kingdom during Narapatisithu's reign. Burmese chronicles also claim Kengtung and Chiang Mai. Core areas shown in darker yellow. Peripheral areas in light yellow. Pagan incorporated key ports of Lower Burma into its core administration by the 13th century. (from History of Myanmar)
Image 29A group of Buddhist worshipers at Shwedagon Pagoda, an important religious site for Burmese Buddhists (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 30Two female musicians play the saung at a performance in Mandalay. (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 31Portuguese ruler and soldiers mounting an elephant. Jan Caspar Philips (draughtsman and engraver). (from History of Myanmar)
Image 32Jade Mine in Hpakant (from Geography of Myanmar)
Image 33Vegetable stall on the roadside at the Madras Lancer Lines, Mandalay, January 1886. Photographer: Hooper, Willoughby Wallace (1837–1912). (from History of Myanmar)
Image 34Salween river at Mae Sam Laep on the Thai-Myanmar border (from Geography of Myanmar)
Image 35The restored Taungoo or Nyaungyan dynasty, c. 1650 CE (from History of Myanmar)
Image 36Deforestation in Myanmar during the British colonial era. (from Geography of Myanmar)
Image 37Myinhkin thabin - equestrian sport (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 38Sculpture of Thagyamin nat (from Culture of Myanmar)
Image 39View of Hpa-An from Mount Zwegabin in Southeastern Hills (from Geography of Myanmar)
Image 40Military situation in Myanmar as of 2024^[update]. Areas controlled by the Tatmadaw are highlighted in red. (from History of Myanmar)
Image 41Myanmar (Burma) map of Köppen climate classification (from Geography of Myanmar)
Image 42Former US President Barack Obama poses barefoot on the grounds of Shwedagon Pagoda, one of Myanmar's major Buddhist pilgrimage sites. (from Culture of Myanmar)