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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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According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Myanmar (also known as Burma) lost 19%, or 7,445,000 hectares (28,750 sq mi), of forest between 1990 and 2010. With forest covering as much as 70% of Burma at the time of independence, there were only slightly more than 48% forest cover left as of 2014. The deforestation rate of Myanmar has declined from 0.95% per year in the years 1990–2010 to about 0.3% per year and deforestation in Myanmar is now less than other countries of the region such as Indonesia or Vietnam, but still remains an important environmental issue. Three main factors contribute to continued deforestation: unsustainable and illegal logging, unresolved land rights and land disputes and extensive agricultural development.
Myanmar possesses the largest expanse of tropical forest in mainland Southeast Asia with a biodiversity much greater than temperate forests. As of 2010, Burma's living forest biomass holds 1,654 million metric tons of carbon and is home to over 80 endemic species. Despite the diversity and size of Burma's forests, only 6.3% of the land is protected and much of it is under the threat of deforestation. (Full article...) -
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The State Administration Council (Burmese: နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ; abbreviated SAC or နစက) is the military junta currently governing Myanmar, established by Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services Min Aung Hlaing following the February 2021 coup d'état and the declaration of a state of emergency by the National Defence and Security Council. Under the constitution, the Commander-in-Chief holds absolute legislative, executive, and judicial power during a state of emergency. Min Aung Hlaing has delegated his legislative power to the SAC, which he chairs. It has formed a provisional administration, also led by Min Aung Hlaing as Prime Minister of Myanmar.
The Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) has designated the SAC as a "terrorist group", and SAC's legitimacy is contested by the competing National Unity Government of Myanmar (NUG). (Full article...) -
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The Battle of the Sittang Bend and the Japanese Breakout across Pegu Yomas were linked Japanese military operations during the Burma Campaign, which took place nearly at the end of World War II. Surviving elements of the Imperial Japanese Army who had been driven into the Pegu Yoma attempted to break out eastwards in order to join other Japanese troops retreating from the British forces. The break-out was the objective of the Japanese Twenty-Eighth Army with support at first from the Thirty-Third Army and later the Fifteenth Army. As a preliminary, the Japanese Thirty-Third Army attacked Allied positions in the Sittang Bend, near the mouth of the river, to distract the Allies. The British had been alerted to the break-out attempt and it ended calamitously for the Japanese, who suffered many losses, with some formations being wiped out.
There were around 14,000 Japanese casualties, with well over half being killed, while British forces suffered only 95 killed and 322 wounded. The break-out attempt and the ensuing battle became the last significant land battle of the Western powers in the Second World War. (Full article...) -
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The Rohingya genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions and killings of the Muslim Rohingya people by the military of Myanmar. The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackdown that occurred from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second has been occurring since August 2017. The crisis forced over a million Rohingya to flee to other countries. Most fled to Bangladesh, resulting in the creation of the world's largest refugee camp, while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia, where they continue to face persecution. Many other countries consider these events ethnic cleansing.
The persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar dates back to at least the 1970s. Since then, the Rohingya people have been persecuted on a regular basis by the government and Buddhist nationalists. In late 2016, Myanmar's armed forces and police launched a major crackdown against the people in Rakhine State which is located in the country's northwestern region. The Burmese military was accused of committing ethnic cleansing and genocide by various United Nations agencies, International Criminal Court officials, human rights groups, journalists, and governments. The UN found evidence of wide-scale human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings; summary executions; gang rapes; arson of Rohingya villages, businesses, and schools; and infanticides. At least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of attacks, between 25 August and September 24, 2017. The Burmese government dismissed these findings by stating they are "exaggerations". Using statistical extrapolations which were based on surveys which were conducted with a total of 3,321 Rohingya refugee households in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, a study which was conducted in January 2018 estimated that the military and the local Rakhine population killed at least 25,000 Rohingya people and perpetrated gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence against 18,000 Rohingya women and girls. They estimated that 116,000 Rohingya were beaten, and 36,000 were thrown into fires. (Full article...) -
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The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam–Burma Railway, Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a 415 km (258 mi) railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now called Myanmar). It was built from 1940 to 1943 by South East Asian civilians abducted and forced to work by the Japanese and a smaller group of captured Allied soldiers, to supply troops and weapons in the Burma campaign of World War II. It completed the rail link between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma. The name used by the Japanese Government was Tai–Men Rensetsu Tetsudō (泰緬連接鉄道), which means Thailand-Burma-Link-Railway.
At least 250,000 Southeast Asian civilians were subjected to forced labour to ensure the construction of the Death Railway and more than 90,000 civilians died building it, as did around 12,000 Allied soldiers. The workers on the Thai side of the railway were Tamils, Malays, and fewer Chinese civilians from Malaya. (Full article...) -
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Lake of No Return (Naung Yang in Tai languages) is a body of water in Myanmar, lying in the area of the Pangsau Pass (3727') on the India–Myanmar border south of Pangsau (also called Pansaung) village. The lake is 1.4 km in length and 0.8 km in width at its widest part. It is located 2.5 km to the southwest of the Ledo Road, formerly called Stilwell Road, the road the Western Allies started building in 1942 to supply the Chinese armies of Chiang Kai-shek.
The area is home to the Tangsa community. Since the improvement of relations between India and Myanmar , the lake has come to play a part in the development of tourism in the nearby Indian Changlang District, which borders on Myanmar. (Full article...) -
Image 7Myanmar is divided into 21 administrative divisions, which include seven regions, seven states, one union territory, one self-administered division, and five self-administered zones. (Full article...)
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Image 8Dein Mani-Yut (Mon: ဒိန်ၝိတ်ရတ်; Burmese: ဒိန်မဏိရွတ်, Burmese pronunciation: [dèiɴ mənḭ jʊ̯ʔ]), commonly known as Amat Dein (အမတ်ဒိန်, "Minister Dein") or as Amat Tein (အမတ်တိန်, "Minister Tein"), was co-chief minister of Hanthawaddy during the reign of King Razadarit (1384–1421). He was also a senior general, and held key governorship posts at Syriam (1370s–1408), Bassein (1408–1415) and Sittaung (1415–1420s). Along with his colleague Byat Za, Dein was instrumental in Razadarit's reunification campaigns of the Mon-speaking kingdom in the late 1380s, as well as the Forty Years' War against the Burmese-speaking Ava Kingdom. (Full article...)
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Ne Win (Burmese: နေဝင်း; IPA: [nè wɪ́ɰ̃]; 24 May 1911 – 5 December 2002) also known as Shu Maung (Burmese: ရှူမောင်; IPA: [/ʃù màʊ̃̀/]), was a Burmese army general, politician and military commander who served as Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma from 1962 to 1981. Ne Win was Burma's military dictator during the Socialist Burma period of 1962 to 1988.
Ne Win founded the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) and overthrew the democratic Union Parliament of U Nu in the 1962 Burmese coup d'état, establishing Burma as a one-party socialist state under the Burmese Way to Socialism ideology. Ne Win was Burma's de facto leader as chairman of the BSPP, serving in various official titles as part of his military government, and was known by his supporters as U Ne Win. His rule was characterized by a non-aligned foreign policy, isolationism, one-party rule, economic stagnation, and superstition. Ne Win resigned in July 1988 in response to the 8888 Uprising that overthrew the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), and was replaced by the military junta of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). He held minor influence in the 1990s but was eventually placed under house arrest, under which he died in 2002. (Full article...) -
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Kyaw Moe Tun (Burmese: ကျော်မိုးထွန်း; born 28 July 1969) is a Burmese diplomat who currently serves as the Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the United Nations. Prior to his appointment to UN, he had served as director-general of International Organizations and Economic Development Department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2018.
In 2021, while Tun was serving as ambassador, the Myanmar military overthrew the elected civilian government in a coup d'etat. Tun remained loyal to the civilian government. The military regime attempted to remove him from his post, but Tun remained in his position at the UN. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch
- ... that Esther Ze Naw, who appeared on the 2021 Time 100, was one of the few people in Myanmar who protested against Aung San Suu Kyi's defence of the military at the International Court of Justice in December 2019?
- ... 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 Aung Myo Min, Union Minister of Human Rights for the National Unity Government of Myanmar, is the country's first openly LGBT minister?
- ... that the Burmese Buddhist monk Sagyo Thu-Myat successfully lobbied for the recalibration of the Burmese calendar?
- ... that as part of the coronation of Mindon Min, the square yuzana around the capital was designated a sanctuary?
- ... that Maung O, Prince of Salin, and his sister Nanmadaw Me Nu became de facto rulers of Burma when King Bagyidaw was suffering from depression?
- ... that the Myanmar Coast Guard was initially proposed as a civilian law enforcement agency before being established as a branch of the military three years later?
- ... 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?
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Image 2Former 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 4Myanmar (Burma) map of Köppen climate classification (from Geography of Myanmar)
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Image 6Pagan 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 7British 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 8A theatrical performance of the Mon dance (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 9Sculpture of Myanmar mythical lion (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 10Aung San Suu Kyi addresses crowds at the NLD headquarters shortly after her release. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 11Saint Mary's Cathedral in Downtown Yangon is the largest Roman Catholic cathedral in Burma. (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 12Political Map of Burma (Myanmar) c. 1450 CE. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 13A large fracture on the Mingun Pahtodawgyi caused by the 1839 Ava earthquake. (from Geography of Myanmar)
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Image 14Protesters 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 1519th-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 16Portuguese ruler and soldiers mounting an Elephant. Philips, Jan Caspar (draughtsman and engraver) (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 18The restored Taungoo or Nyaungyan dynasty c. 1650 CE. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 19A bull fight, 19th-century watercolour (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 20Vegetable 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 21Salween river at Mae Sam Laep on the Thai-Myanmar border (from Geography of Myanmar)
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Image 22British 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 23British 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 25Boxing match, 19th-century watercolour (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 26Protesters in Yangon carrying signs reading "Free Daw Aung San Suu Kyi" on 8 February 2021. (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 27Temples 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 28Recorder'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 30Myinhkin thabin - equestrian sport (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 32The shores of Irrawaddy River at Nyaung-U, Bagan (from Geography of Myanmar)
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Image 33Grandfather Island, Dawei (from Geography of Myanmar)
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Image 34Two female musicians play the saung at a performance in Mandalay. (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 35Hlei pyaingbwè - a Burmese regatta (from Culture of Myanmar)
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Image 36A 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 37Aerial view of a burned Rohingya village in Rakhine state, Myanmar, September 2017 (from History of Myanmar)
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Image 38The 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 39A group of Buddhist worshipers at Shwedagon Pagoda, an important religious site for Burmese Buddhists (from Culture of Myanmar)
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