Portal:Myanmar
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Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma (the official name until 1989), is a country in 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 Bangladesh and India 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 also 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; as of 2020, according to the Human Development Index, it ranks 147 out of 189 countries in terms of human development, the lowest in Southeast Asia. Since 2021, more than 600,000 people were displaced across Myanmar due to the surge in violence post-coup, with more than 3 million people in dire need of humanitarian assistance. (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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The Early Pagan Kingdom (Burmese: ခေတ်ဦး ပုဂံ ပြည်) was a city-state that existed in the first millennium CE before the emergence of the Pagan Empire in the mid 11th century. The Burmese chronicles state that the "kingdom" was founded in the second century CE. The seat of power of the small kingdom was first located at Arimaddana, Thiri Pyissaya, and Tampawaddy until 849 CE when it was moved to Pagan (Bagan).
Radiocarbon dating shows the earliest human settlement in the Pagan region dates only from the mid-7th century CE. It existed alongside Pyu city-states that dominated Upper Burma. The city-state of Pagan, according to mainstream scholarship, was founded in the mid 9th century by the Mranma of Nanzhao Kingdom. Burmans at Pagan expanded irrigation-based cultivation while borrowing extensively from the Pyus' predominantly Buddhist culture. It was one of many competing city-states in the Pyu realm until the late 10th century when the principality began absorbing its surrounding states. The expansion accelerated in the 1050s and 1060s when King Anawrahta founded the Pagan Empire, the first ever unification of the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery. (Full article...) -
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The Provisional Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Burmese: ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော် အာဏာသိမ်းခေါင်းဆောင်), is the executive body of Myanmar under the current military junta, the State Administration Council. On 1 August 2021, it replaced the Management Committee of the State Administration Council, which had been in place since 19 February 2021, following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état. Some ministers were appointed by Min Aung Hlaing immediately following the coup on 1 February, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services exercising emergency powers.
Due to the state of emergency, the cabinet is led by Prime Minister Min Aung Hlaing rather than Acting President Myint Swe, despite the president being the constitutional head of government. (Full article...) -
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The Kingdom of Pagan (Burmese: ပုဂံခေတ်, pronounced [bəɡàɰ̃ kʰɪʔ], lit. 'Pagan Period'; also known as the Pagan dynasty and the Pagan Empire; also the Bagan dynasty or Bagan Empire) was the first Burmese kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-day Myanmar. Pagan's 250-year rule over the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery laid the foundation for the ascent of Burmese language and culture, the spread of Bamar ethnicity in Upper Myanmar, and the growth of Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar and in mainland Southeast Asia.
The kingdom grew out of a small 9th-century settlement at Pagan (present-day Bagan) by the Mranma/Burmans. Over the next two hundred years, the small principality gradually grew to absorb its surrounding regions until the 1050s and 1060s when King Anawrahta founded the Pagan Empire, presumably for the first time unifying under one polity the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery. By the late 12th century, Anawrahta's successors had extended their influence farther to the south into the upper Malay Peninsula, to the east at least to the Salween river, in the farther north to below the current China border, and to the west, in northern Arakan and the Chin Hills. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Pagan, alongside the Khmer Empire, was one of two main empires in mainland Southeast Asia. (Full article...) -
Image 5Myanmar (Burma) is a Buddhist majority country with a significant minority of Christians and other groups residing in the country.
Buddhism is a part of Myanmar culture. Section 361 of the Constitution states that "The Union recognizes the special position of Buddhism as the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens of the Union."
According to both the 2014 census of the Burmese government Buddhism is the dominant religion, of 89.8% of the population, practiced especially by the Bamar, Rakhine, Shan, Mon and Chinese ethnic groups. Bamar people also practice the Burmese folk religion under the name of Buddhism. The 2008 constitution provides for the freedom of religion; however, it also grants broad exceptions that allow the regime to restrict these rights at will. (Full article...) -
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The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. The world's largest bay, geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region (based on which the bay was named during the British Raj).
Many South Asian and Southeast Asian countries are dependent on the Bay of Bengal. Geopolitically, the bay is bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between Sangaman Kanda, Sri Lanka, and the northwesternmost point of Sumatra, Indonesia. Cox's Bazar, the longest sea beach in the world and Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest and the natural habitat of the Bengal tiger, are located along the bay. (Full article...) -
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Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (/aʊŋ ˌsɑːn suː ˈtʃiː/ owng SAHN soo CHEE; Burmese: အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်; MLCTS: aung hcan: cu. krany [ʔàʊɰ̃ sʰáɰ̃ sṵ tɕì]; born 19 June 1945), sometimes abbreviated to Suu Kyi, is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as State Counsellor of Myanmar (equivalent to a prime minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2021. She has served as the general secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) since the party's founding in 1988 and was registered as its chairperson while it was a legal party from 2011 to 2023. She played a vital role in Myanmar's transition from military junta to partial democracy in the 2010s.
The youngest daughter of Aung San, Father of the Nation of modern-day Myanmar, and Khin Kyi, Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon, British Burma. After graduating from the University of Delhi in 1964 and St Hugh's College, Oxford in 1968, she worked at the United Nations for three years. She married Michael Aris in 1972, with whom she had two children. (Full article...) -
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The Myanmar Air Force (Burmese: တပ်မတော် (လေ), pronounced [taʔmədɔ̀ (le)]), known until 1989 as the Burmese Air Force, is the aerial branch of Myanmar's armed forces, the Tatmadaw. The primary mission of the Myanmar Air Force (MAF) since its inception has been to provide transport, logistical, and close air support to the Myanmar Army in counter-insurgency operations. It is mainly used in internal conflicts in Myanmar, and, on a smaller scale, in relief missions, especially after the deadly Cyclone Nargis of May 2008. (Full article...) -
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The Golden Triangle is a large, mountainous region of approximately 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi) in northeastern Myanmar, northwestern Thailand and northern Laos, centered on the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers. The name "Golden Triangle" was coined by Marshall Green, a U.S. State Department official, in 1971 in a press conference on the opium trade. Today, the Thai side of the river confluence, Sop Ruak, has become a tourist attraction, with an Opium Museum, a Hall of Opium, and a Golden Triangle Park, and no opium cultivation.
The Golden Triangle has been one of the largest opium-producing areas of the world since the 1950s. Most of the world's heroin came from the Golden Triangle until the early 21st century when opium production in Afghanistan increased. Myanmar was the world's second-largest source of opium after Afghanistan up to 2022, producing some 25% of the world's opium, forming part of the Golden Triangle. While opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar had declined year-on-year since 2015, cultivation area increased by 33% totalling 40,100 ha (99,000 acres) alongside an 88% increase in yield potential to 790 t (780 long tons; 870 short tons) in 2022 according to latest data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Myanmar Opium Survey 2022. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has also warned that opium production in Myanmar may rise again if the economic crunch brought on by COVID-19 and the country's 2021 Myanmar coup d'état persists, with significant public health and security consequences for much of Asia. (Full article...) -
Image 10The print, broadcast and online mass media in Burma (also known as Myanmar) has undergone strict censorship and regulation since the 1962 Burmese coup d'état. The constitution provides for freedom of speech and the press; however, the government prohibits the exercise of these rights in practice. Reporters Without Borders ranked Burma 174th out of 178 in its 2010 Press Freedom Index, ahead of just Iran, Turkmenistan, North Korea, and Eritrea. In 2015, Burma moved up to 144th place, ahead of many of its ASEAN neighbours such as Singapore, as a result of political changes in the country.
There have been moves to lift censorship in the country. Tint Swe, head of the country's censorship body, the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division (PSRB), told Radio Free Asia that censorship "should be abolished in the near future" as it is "non-existent in most other countries" and "not in harmony with democratic practices." Burma announced on 20 August 2012, that it will stop censoring media before publication. Newspapers and other outlets would no longer have to be approved by state censors, but journalists in the country could still face consequences for what they write and say. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch
- ... that the Myanmar Photo Archive (example photograph shown) revealed "a side of modern Myanmar that, until very recently, remained hidden in dusty attics"?
- ... that Aung Myo Min, Union Minister of Human Rights for the National Unity Government of Myanmar, is the country's first openly LGBT minister?
- ... that as part of the coronation of Mindon Min, the square yuzana around the capital was designated a sanctuary?
- ... that the talabaw soup, which consists primarily of bamboo shoots, is the essential dish of Myanmar's Karen people, who use it to supplement rice?
- ... that clashes between the Myanmar military and local armed groups broke out in Lay Kay Kaw six years after it was established as a "town of peace" between the parties?
- ... that Rangoon kept its own time for more than two decades after Burma Standard Time first came into effect?
- ... that Molly Burman resumed releasing music three years later after finding that "Happy Things" had accrued a million streams on Spotify?
- ... that Rolling Stone named Mission of Burma's "Academy Fight Song" as one of the 100 greatest debut singles of all time?
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Image 1Two female musicians play the saung at a performance in Mandalay. (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 2Protesters in Yangon carrying signs reading "Free Daw Aung San Suu Kyi" on 8 February 2021. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 3Grandfather Island, Dawei (from Geography of Myanmar)
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Image 5The 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)
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Image 6Salween river at Mae Sam Laep on the Thai-Myanmar border (from Geography of Myanmar)
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Image 8Former US President Barack Obama poses barefoot on the grounds of Shwedagon Pagoda, one of Myanmar's major Buddhist pilgrimage sites. (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 9Aung San Suu Kyi addresses crowds at the NLD headquarters shortly after her release. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 11A theatrical performance of the Mon dance (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 12A bull fight, 19th-century watercolour (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 14Pagan 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)
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Image 15Portuguese ruler and soldiers mounting an Elephant. Philips, Jan Caspar (draughtsman and engraver) (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 16Vegetable stall on the roadside at the Madras Lancer Lines, Mandalay, January 1886. Photographer: Hooper, Willoughby Wallace (1837–1912). (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 17The restored Taungoo or Nyaungyan dynasty c. 1650 CE. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 19The shores of Irrawaddy River at Nyaung-U, Bagan (from Geography of Myanmar)
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Image 20Sculpture of Myanmar mythical lion (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 22A large fracture on the Mingun Pahtodawgyi caused by the 1839 Ava earthquake. (from Geography of Myanmar)
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Image 23Political Map of Burma (Myanmar) c. 1450 CE. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 24A wedding procession, with the groom and bride dressed in traditional Burmese wedding clothes, reminiscent of royal attire (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 25British soldiers on patrol in the ruins of the Burmese town of Bahe during the advance on Mandalay, January 1945. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 26Recorder's Court on Sule Pagoda Road, with the Sule Pagoda at the far end, Rangoon, 1868. Photographer: J. Jackson. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 27Saint Mary's Cathedral in Downtown Yangon is the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in Burma. (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 28A group of Buddhist worshipers at Shwedagon Pagoda, an important religious site for Burmese Buddhists (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 29British 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)
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Image 3019th-century funeral cart and spire, which would form part of the procession from the home to the place of cremation (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 32Hlei pyaingbwè - a Burmese regatta (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 33Boxing match, 19th-century watercolour (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 34Protesters in Yangon with a banner that reads non-violence: national movement in Burmese, in the background is Shwedagon Pagoda. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 36Temples at Mrauk U, was the capital of the Mrauk U Kingdom, which ruled over what is now Rakhine State. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 37Aerial view of a burned Rohingya village in Rakhine state, Myanmar, September 2017 (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 38Myanmar (Burma) map of Köppen climate classification (from Geography of Myanmar)
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Image 39British 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)
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Image 40Myinhkin thabin - equestrian sport (from Culture of Myanmar)
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