page_title: Taunggyi
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Taunggyi / Culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Saint Josephs Cathedral is seen in Taunggyi, Myanmar on 21 December 2010.မြန်မာဘာသာ: စိန့် ဂျိုးဇက် ဘုရားရှစ်ခိုးကျောင်းကို တောင်ကြီးမြို့၊ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် ဒီဇင်ဘာလ ၂၁ ရက်၊ ၂၀၁၀ ခုနှစ်က တွေ့မြင်ရစဉ်
context_page_description: Taunggyi is the capital and largest city of Shan State, Myanmar and lies on the Thazi-Kyaingtong road at an elevation of 4,712 feet, just north of Shwenyaung and Inle Lake within the Myelat region. Taunggyi is the fifth largest city of Myanmar, and has an estimated population of 380,665 as of 2014.The city is famous for its hot air balloon festival held annually on the full moon day of Tazaungmon.
context_section_description: Taunggyi is the melting pot for the Myelat area of the Shan State. Like in most of Myanmar, influence of Buddhism is most evidenced by the monasteries scattered throughout the city.  However, being a relatively new city, the monasteries are not of historical significance and architecturally not unique.  There is also a significant Christian population, as the center of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Taunggyi the St. Joseph's Cathedral and its associated seminary are the main facilities, as well as a Baptist church. Both churches were established by early missionaries.  There is also a smaller Anglican church, which originally served the British administrators, but recently it has fallen into a state of disrepair.  Four mosques serve the Muslim communities of the city. Among four mosques, Panthay mosque serves the Chinese Panthay Muslims mainly. The other mosques are for large population of Burmese Muslims.  There are also a few temples serving the Chinese Buddhist community. After 1990s, Chinese migrants are settling in Taunggyi and now they constitute the considerable proportion in communities. 
  The Taunggyi celebration of the Tazaungdaing Festival, a national holiday marking the end of the rainy season, has achieved international notoriety.
  "...balloons with large fireworks displays attached are sent airborne - but if they don’t rise quickly enough, the pyrotechnics rocket back towards to crowds - sending people scattering. Videos of balloons engulfed in flames exploding amongst onlookers have become wildly popular on YouTube." There were nine people injured in 2018, 
  two deaths and 12 injuries in 2017, and
  four deaths in 2014.
  Being the capital of the Shan State, Taunggyi hosts many government offices. The city also hosts Eastern Command of the Tatmadaw (Myanmar military) and it occupies a significant portion of the north-east area of the city.Shan State Cultural Museum lies in Taunggyi. The museum displays the Shan culture, as well as items of historical interest, such as the belongings of Sawbwa.
caption: St. Joseph's Cathedral in Taunggyi serves as the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Taunggyi.
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