50 Fun Facts About Myanmar

What was Myanmar's official English name until 1989?

Burma was the country's official English name until 1989, when the ruling military council renamed it Myanmar under the Adaptation of Expressions Law.

What is the capital city of Myanmar?

Naypyidaw has been the capital since the military government began moving the seat of government there from the former capital in November 2005.

What is Myanmar's largest city?

Yangon, the former capital, is Myanmar's largest city with roughly 5 million residents, several times the size of Mandalay.

What does the name of Myanmar's purpose-built capital mean?

The capital's name translates as 'city of the kings' or 'royal abode'; it was announced on Armed Forces Day, 27 March 2006.

Myanmar holds what distinction among the countries of mainland Southeast Asia?

Myanmar is the largest country by area in mainland Southeast Asia, covering about 676,000 square kilometres, well ahead of Thailand's 513,000.

Which of these countries does NOT border Myanmar?

Vietnam does not touch Myanmar; Laos lies between them. Myanmar's five neighbours are Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand.

What is the principal river of Myanmar, about 2,170 km long?

The Irrawaddy, or Ayeyarwady, bisects the country from north to south past Mandalay and Bagan and has been its main commercial waterway for centuries.

What is the highest point in Myanmar, at 5,881 m?

Hkakabo Razi, 5,881 m, stands in Kachin State on the Chinese border in the far north and is generally counted the highest peak in Southeast Asia.

Myanmar is divided into how many states, matched by an equal number of regions?

Myanmar has seven states, mostly named for ethnic minorities such as the Shan and Kachin, and seven regions where the Bamar majority predominates.

Which king built the Pagan Empire in the 11th century, first uniting the river valley?

Anawrahta took the Pagan throne in 1044 and, by conquering the Mon kingdom of Thaton in 1057, united the river valley under one ruler for the first time.

Roughly how many temples and pagodas survive on the plains of Bagan?

Over 2,200 temples and pagodas survive on the Bagan plain, out of more than 10,000 built at the kingdom's height between the 11th and 13th centuries.

Bagan finally became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?

Bagan was inscribed in July 2019, after a 1990s nomination stalled over heavy-handed reconstructions carried out under the military government.

Which invaders toppled the Pagan Kingdom in 1287?

The Mongols of Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty invaded from Yunnan and took Pagan in 1287; Shan migrants who came with them stayed and founded rival states.

Under which 16th-century king did Burma become the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia?

Bayinnaung, who reigned 1550–1581, conquered Ayutthaya, Lan Na, Lan Xang and Manipur, building the largest empire in Southeast Asian history; it collapsed by 1599.

How many Anglo-Burmese Wars did Britain fight in the 19th century?

Britain fought three Anglo-Burmese Wars, in 1824–26, 1852 and 1885; the last ended with the fall of Mandalay and the annexation of the whole country.

Britain annexed the rest of Burma in 1885 partly out of alarm at which rival's expansion?

British fears that King Thibaw was courting France, which had just taken Tonkin and was assembling French Indochina, helped trigger the 1885 war; annexation followed on 1 January 1886.

In the 1920s, Rangoon overtook which city as the world's busiest immigration port?

Rangoon, then the colonial capital, drew so many migrants from India that by the 1920s it surpassed New York as the world's greatest immigration port; Indians became a majority of its population.

Who negotiated the 1947 Panglong Agreement with ethnic leaders and is called the Father of the Nation?

Aung San signed the Panglong Agreement with Shan, Kachin and Chin leaders on 12 February 1947 and was assassinated with six cabinet colleagues on 19 July 1947.

Burma became an independent republic on which date?

Burma became independent on 4 January 1948 under the Burma Independence Act 1947, leaving the Commonwealth as a republic with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first president.

Which Burmese diplomat served as UN Secretary-General for ten years from 1961?

U Thant led the United Nations from November 1961 to December 1971, the first Asian Secretary-General; the army violently broke up protests at his 1974 funeral.

Which general seized power in the coup of 2 March 1962?

General Ne Win overthrew U Nu's elected government on 2 March 1962; his 'Burmese Way to Socialism' then nationalised almost every part of the economy.

The mass pro-democracy protests of 1988 are known by what name?

The 8888 Uprising takes its name from the general strike called on 8 August 1988; the army crushed the protests in September, killing thousands.

The 2007 protests led by Buddhist monks against fuel prices were called what?

The Saffron Revolution is named for the monks' robes; it began after fuel prices were raised in August 2007 and was crushed by the army in late September.

Which cyclone devastated the rice-growing delta in May 2008, killing at least 138,000 people?

Cyclone Nargis came ashore on 2 May 2008; the official count was 138,373 dead or missing, the worst natural disaster in the country's recorded history.

Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in which year?

Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, two years into her first house arrest; her son Alexander accepted it on her behalf in Oslo.

Why was Aung San Suu Kyi barred from becoming president after the 2015 election?

Article 59(f) of the 2008 constitution bars anyone whose spouse or children are foreign citizens; her late husband and two sons were British, so she became State Counsellor instead.

Aung San Suu Kyi's party, which won landslides in 1990, 2015 and 2020, is called what?

The National League for Democracy, founded in September 1988, took 392 of 492 seats in the 1990 election, a result the junta refused to honour.

Which military chief took power in the coup of 1 February 2021?

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief since 2011, detained Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint on 1 February 2021 and took power through a State Administration Council.

What is the name of Myanmar's armed forces?

Tatmadaw, literally 'royal armed forces', is the name of Myanmar's military, which has ruled the country directly or through proxies since 1962.

Which minority has been denied citizenship under Myanmar's 1982 Citizenship Law?

The Rohingya, a mostly Muslim people of Rakhine State near the Bangladesh border, were left off the list of recognised national races in the 1982 Citizenship Law, leaving most of them stateless.

The Bamar make up roughly what share of Myanmar's population?

The Bamar are about 68% of the population, far ahead of the Shan (about 9%) and Karen (about 7%); their language, Burmese, belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family.

Which branch of Buddhism is the most widespread in Myanmar?

Theravada Buddhism, the school shared with Sri Lanka and Thailand, dominates: the 2014 census counted roughly 88% of the population as Buddhist.

Which town in Myanmar is famous as the 'Valley of Rubies'?

Mogok, about 200 km north of Mandalay, has been mined for rubies for centuries and produced the 'pigeon's blood' stones that set world auction records.

Myanmar has long ranked among the world's top two producers of which drug crop?

Opium poppy has been grown in Shan State for generations; Myanmar ranked second to Afghanistan for decades and, after the 2022 Afghan ban collapsed output there, was rated the top producer in 2023.

What is mohinga, Myanmar's national dish?

Mohinga is a fish soup with rice noodles, usually catfish in a broth flavoured with lemongrass and turmeric, eaten for breakfast across the country.

Lahpet, a staple of Burmese salads, is what?

Lahpet is pickled tea leaves, fermented after steaming; lahpet thoke, the salad of those leaves with fried beans, nuts and garlic, is among the country's best-known dishes.

Chinlone and lethwei are traditional Burmese examples of what?

Both are sports: chinlone is a non-competitive cane-ball game in which players keep a rattan ball aloft, and lethwei is bare-knuckle boxing that allows headbutts.

The Shwedagon Pagoda is believed to enshrine relics of how many Buddhas?

Four Buddhas' relics are said to rest there: Kakusandha's staff, Konagamana's water filter, Kassapa's robe and eight hairs of Gautama.

Which lake is famous for its Intha fishermen who row with one leg?

Inle Lake in Shan State is known for Intha fishermen who stand and row with one leg wrapped round the oar, and for its floating tomato gardens.

The crown of the Shwedagon is tipped with 2,317 rubies and how many diamonds?

The umbrella crown, or hti, carries 5,448 diamonds and 2,317 rubies and is topped by a 76-carat diamond bud.

What colours make up the Myanmar flag adopted in 2010?

The 2010 flag has horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red, for solidarity, peace and courage, with a large white five-pointed star in the centre.

Myanmar's principal river empties through its delta into which body of water?

The river fans out through a nine-armed delta into the Andaman Sea, the arm of the Indian Ocean that lies east of the Bay of Bengal.

Which early city-states of Upper Myanmar were heavily influenced by trade with India, importing Buddhism?

The Pyu built walled cities such as Sri Ksetra and Beikthano in the dry zone from about the 2nd century BC, adopting Buddhism and Indian scripts through trade.

Which kingdom unified the Arakan coastline for the first time in 1437?

Mrauk U, made a capital in 1429 by Min Saw Mon, brought the whole Arakan coast under one rule by 1437; its temple ruins stand in Rakhine State.

Which ancient language is used for the scriptures and liturgy of Burmese Buddhism?

Pali, the Indo-Aryan language of the Tipitaka, is chanted by Burmese monks and written in the Burmese script; it has supplied Burmese with thousands of loanwords.

Which king had reunited all of Myanmar by 1759, founding the Konbaung dynasty?

Alaungpaya, a village chief from Shwebo, founded the Konbaung dynasty in 1752 and had reunited the country by 1759, expelling the French and British who had armed rival Hanthawaddy.

In which year did Myanmar become a member of ASEAN?

Myanmar joined ASEAN on 23 July 1997, alongside Laos; it gave up its turn as chair in 2006 under Western pressure but chaired the bloc in 2014.

Rice covers roughly what share of Myanmar's cultivated land?

Rice occupies about 60% of Myanmar's cultivated land, mostly in the delta and coastal lowlands, and makes up 97% of food-grain output by weight.

Roughly how many people live in Myanmar?

Myanmar's population is about 55 million; the 2014 census counted 51.5 million, and UN estimates have since passed 54 million.

Besides 1961 and 2013, in which year did Myanmar host the Southeast Asian Games?

The 1969 edition, the fifth SEAP Games, was held in the then capital in December 1969; the country did not host again until 2013, when events were spread across four cities.