The Chinese have rebuilt the parts of the city that burned down. They built apartment buildings, hotels, and shopping centers. They helped make Mandalay again an important city for trade and commerce. It now connects trade for Upper Burma, Lower Burma, China, and India.
Mandalay has grown much bigger over time. It now includes what used to be Amarapura. (Amarapura was where King Mindon's capital city used to be before he moved it to Mandalay.) Mandalay celebrated its 150th birthday on 15 May 2009 at 4:31:36 am.
There are many important places and buildings in Mandalay.
The royal palace in Mandalay is a very important building. A lot of it was burned down during World War II. The royal mint and watch tower did not burn down. The rest of the buildings were rebuilt.
The Mandalay Palace's name in Burmese is "Mya Nan San Kyaw" ( ; "The Famed Royal Emerald Palace"). It is also called (), or the "Great Golden Royal Palace".
Today the palace is an important symbol of Mandalay. Many tourists and visitors come to see it.
The Atumashi Monastery is a Buddhist monastery. A monastery is a building where monks (holy men) live, work, and pray. This place is a "kyaung", a special kind of monastery. The name means "inimitable "vihara"."
The monastery burned down in 1890. Only the plinth (bottom platform) did not burn. The government decided to rebuild the monastery. They started building on 2 May 1995. It was finished being built in June of 1996.
Mandalay Hill is a big hill in Mandalay. It is a holy hill. There is a legend about the hill. The Buddha visited the hill and made a prophecy. He said that some day a great city would be built at the bottom of the hill.
The hill is tall. There is a road to the top. There are many temples, monasteries, and pagodas built on the hill.
The Kuthodaw Pagoda is a very large pagoda. It was built by King Mindon in 1857. It was designed to look like the Shwezigon Pagoda in Nyaung U.
There are 729 rocks around the pagoda. Each rock is smooth and has writing on it. The writing are the words of the "Tipiṭaka". (The "Tipiṭaka" are the Buhhdist holy books.) These stone rocks are the "world's largest book."
The Mahamuni Buddha Temple is one of the most important Buddhist temples. It has an important Buddha statue. The statue was made during the life of the Gautama Buddha. The Gauthama Buddha hugged the statue seven times. This caused the statue to come to life.
Buddhists believe that the statue is alive because of this. They call it the Mahamuni Sacred Living Image. This makes the Mahamuni Temple the most holy pagoda in Mandalay.
The temple was built by King Bodawpaya in 1784. The Buddha is sitting. It is tall.
Near the bottom of Mandalay Hill is the Kyauktawgyi Pagoda. It was built by King Mindon from 1853 to 1878. It was carved out of one big block of marble. Around it are 80 arahants.
The Yadanabon Zoological Garden is a small zoo in Mandalay. It is in between the palace and Mandalay Hill. It is the only zoo in the world that has Burmese roofed turtles.
The Shwenandaw Monastery (, ; lit. "Golden Palace Monastery") is an important Buddhist monastery. It was built by King Thibaw Min in 1880. It is made from teak, a kind of wood. Inside of it are many carvings on the walls and roofs. The carvings show Buddhist myths.
In 2007, the United Nations (UN) guessed that there were about 1 million people living in Mandalay. In 2014, the Myanmar government counted all of the people in the country for a census. They found that there were 1,225,133 people living in Mandalay then. The UN thinks that there will be 1.5 million people in Mandalay in 2025.
Mandalay has always been an important city for the Bamar people. Most of the people who have lived in Mandalay are Burman people. Lots of Chinese people have been moving to Mandalay. The Chinese have been coming for the past 20 years. Now there are more Chinese people than Burman people in Mandalay.
Today, 40-50% of the people in Mandalay are Chinese. About 30% of Mandalay's people are Yunnanese. The rest of the people in Mandalay are probably Burman. There are also a lot of Burmese Indians in Mandalay. (These are Indian people who live in Myanmar.)
People in Mandalay speak the Burmese language. A lot of people also speak the Standard Chinese language. The Chinese language is used a lot in markets like Zegyo Market. People who have a lot of money and education also speak the English language.
Mandalay is in the country of Myanmar. It is by the side of the Irrawaddy river. Its coordinates are 21.98° North, 96.08° East.
The city is above sea level. It is in the same time zone as the rest of Mandalay: Myanmar Standard Time (MST), .
Mandalay is on a tectonic fault. This means that there are two tectonic plates that come together underneath the city. (A "tectonic plate" is a big piece of earth.) The tectonic fault underneath Mandalay is called the Sagaing Fault. It is where the India Plate and the Sunda Plate meet.
A lot of earthquakes happen on tectonic faults. The biggest earthquake in Mandalay happened in 1956. That one was a magnitude 7 earthquake. That earthquake did a lot more damage to the city of Sagaing, which is nearby. It is now called the "Great Sagaing Quake."
Mandalay has a tropical savanna climate. This means that the city has a wet season and a dry season. There is a lot of rain during the wet season. There is very little rain during the dry season. The wet season is from May to October. The dry season is from November to April.
The coldest month is January. The average temperature is . The hottest month is April. Then, the average temperature is .
It is very hot in April and May. Most days it is hotter than . Some days it is hotter than .
The hottest temperature ever in Mandalay was . The coldest temperature ever was .
There are some important books and poems that talk about Mandalay. Some of these are famous.
Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called "Mandalay." He wrote it in 1890. This poem has a famous saying in it: "on the road to Mandalay."
In 1907, Oley Speaks wrote a song using the words of the poem. He called the song "On the Road to Mandalay." The song is very famous. Frank Sinatra sang the song and called it "Come Fly with Me".
George Orwell wrote a novel called "Burmese Days". He wrote it in 1934. Orwell was part of the Indian Imperial Police. He was stationed in Mandalay. The novel is about his experiences (what he did and saw.) He also wrote some non-fiction essays and short stories. Some of these are "A Hanging" (1931) and "Shooting an Elephant" (1936).
Mandalay has three twin towns:
Act of Congress
An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress according to the powers granted to it by the Constitution of the United States. The term can be used in other countries with a legislature called a "Congress," such as the Congress of the Philippines. But most often the term is associated with the United States Congress. In the US, there are several steps from a bill or resolution becoming a law. It must first be passed by a majority of both of the houses of Congress. Then the bill or resolution is sent to get signed by the President. It becomes an Act of Congress by either the president's signature or, if the President does not return the bill or resolution within ten days.
Senators and Representatives create thousands of written proposals each year for new laws. Called bills, only a few few ever make it all the way through the process to become a law. The Constitution requires only three steps: passing the House, passing the Senate and approval by the President. The actual process has become much more complicated.