page_title: Mandalay
section_title: Colonial Mandalay (1885–1948)
hierarchical_section_title: Mandalay / History / Colonial Mandalay (1885–1948)
caption_attribution_description: English: Myowun of Mandalay in court dressTitle: သီရိမဟာဇေယျဂါမဏိဘွဲ့ခံ မြို့တော်ဝန်ဦးပေစိ
context_page_description: Mandalay is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 716 km north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553.
  Mandalay was founded in 1857 by King Mindon, replacing Amarapura as the new royal capital of the Konbaung dynasty. It was Burma's final royal capital before the kingdom's annexation by the British Empire in 1885. Under British rule, Mandalay remained commercially and culturally important despite the rise of Yangon, the new capital of British Burma. The city suffered extensive destruction during the Japanese conquest of Burma in the Second World War. In 1948, Mandalay became part of the newly independent Union of Burma.
  Today, Mandalay is the economic centre of Upper Myanmar and considered the centre of Burmese culture. A continuing influx of Chinese immigrants, mostly from Yunnan, since the late 20th century, has reshaped the city's ethnic makeup and increased commerce with China. Despite Naypyidaw's recent rise, Mandalay remains Upper Burma's main commercial, educational and health center.
context_section_description: While Mandalay would continue to be the chief city of Upper Burma during the British colonial rule, the commercial and political importance had irreversibly shifted to Yangon. The British view on the development of Mandalay (and Burma) was mainly with commercial intentions. While rail transport reached Mandalay in 1889, less than four years after the annexation, the first college in Mandalay, Mandalay College, was not established until 40 years later, in 1925. The British looted the palace, with some of the treasures still on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum, also renaming the palace compound Fort Dufferin and used it to billet troops.
  Throughout the colonial years, Mandalay was the centre of Burmese culture and Buddhist learning, and as the last royal capital, was regarded by the Burmese as a primary symbol of sovereignty and identity. Between the two World Wars, the city was Upper Burma's focal point in a series of nationwide protests against the British rule. The British rule brought in many immigrants from India to the city. In 1904–05, a plague caused about one-third of the population to flee the city.
  During World War II, Mandalay suffered the most devastating air raids of the war. On 3 April 1942, during the Japanese conquest of Burma, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service carried out an extensive assault. The city was in effect defenseless as its firefighting resources were weak, having been lost in earlier bombing, it had no anti-aircraft capacity, and the British RAF had by now withdrawn all its aircraft to India. Three-fifths of Mandalay's houses were destroyed and 2,000 civilians were killed. Many residents also fled when the city was under Japanese occupation from May 1942 to March 1945. The palace citadel, which had been turned into a supply depot by the Japanese, was in turn burnt to the ground by Allied bombing; only the royal mint and the watch tower survived. (A faithful replica of the palace was rebuilt in the 1990s.)
caption: Myowun (Mayor) of Mandalay, c. 1900.
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