Burma (Asian Samrajye)

## Burma (Myanmar)

* Flag
* FlagMap
* Outline Border

*Burma* (Burmese: မြန်မာပြည်), previously *Myanmar* (Burmese: မြန်မာ), is a South-East Asian (SEA) country. In TSIGPIGS, they're both male in the mapping and object style, and compete in the team of ASEAN.
During the selection process, Myanmar was selected as an individual candidate, however, due to the "lower cast mandate for MS", they merged with India and Afghanistan to form Asian Samrajye, where he also had to change his name to Burma.

## Geography

Burma is a SEA country bordered by India and Bangladesh to the North-West, China to the North, Laos to the East, and Thailand to the South-East, with a coast of the Andaman Sea to the South and Bay of Bengal to the South-West.

### Political Geography

Burma is pretty much a land bridge that connects the Indian subcontinent to rest of SEA (to the South-East) and China (to the North). They got a panhandle at the Kra Isthmus region also shared between Thailand and Malaysia. here, the southernmost mainland area, *Kawthaung* can be found, and on the coast, the country has >800 islands, and their territory can further South at Christie Island, the real southernmost point of Burma. Going a just bit North to the island, the largest island, *Kadan Kyun*, is located. Keep in mind that the small islands of *Cocos* just off to the Andaman Island belonging to India are also a part of Burma's territory.

The country is divided into 21 administrative divisions, where things get a little tricky.

Firstly, there are 7 states, and 7 regions; they're considered equivalent, and the only distinction is that the states typically have ethnic minority, whereas the regions typically have the largest majority group of the Burmar Burmese people. Within the regions of the state of the Sagaing Region and the Shan State, 5 self-administered zones (Naga Saz, Pa Laung Saz, Kolang Saz, Pao Saz, Qanoon Saz), and 1 self-administered division (Wa Sad) exists. These are the areas that are led by a chairman nominated by the Armed Forces.

Finally, the newly moved and constructed capital city of *Naypyidaw*, the 3rd largest city in the country acts as its own UT. However the largest city is actually Yangon in the South, which was the capital of the country for the longest time. Otherwise, the 2nd largest city is Mandalay up North, which was also the last royal capital. Also, at 4,800 km2, Naypyidaw is huge in size, but has a pretty low population density at only about 130 people. because of this, it also has an empty, eerie 20-lane highway, which some some people believe it was built to be an emergency aircraft runaway.

#### Landmarks

There are certain spots of places that can be checked out in Burma, like:

* The Inwa Ruins
* Pagoda of Holy Snakes
* Mingun Bell (the 2nd largest functioning bell in the world)
* Win Sein Taw Ya (World's largest reclining Buddha)
* Shwenandaw Kyaung Temple
* Nyaung Ohak Jungle Temple Village
* Mahamuni Temple (in Mandalay)
* Kuthodaw Pagoda (World's largest book, carved in stones)
* Bogyoke Market
* Taukkyan War Cemetry
* Independence Monument
* The Golden Rock
* Shwegadon Pagoda
* Ancient City of Pagan (The most famous landmark with over 22,000 temples with hot air balloons)

Yangon is pretty popular due to the fact the city is surrounded by lush vegetation all over the country as well.

### Physical Geography

Just like Switzerland, Burma's surrounded by its neighbors by various mountain chains.

* There's the Arakan Yoma and the Shin Hills at the South-West.
* In the North-West, the Naga Hills and the Hengduan Mountains, which are part of the Northern-Himalayas.
* The tallest peak in all of SEA, Hkakabo Razi can be found.
* There's the Karen Hills in the southern outskirts of the Shan Plateau.
* Within the panhandle of Burma, the Dawna Range and the Tenasserim Hills.

In conclusion, the central interiors of Burma is generally flat, with incredibly lush valleys fed by the longest and most important river of the country, the Irrawaddy River. The Irrawaddy River is sourced by the snowmelt and springs of the Himalayas up North. Also, in the North, the largest natural Burmese lake of Indawgyi Lake can be found here, which also has a cool pagoda on it.

The vast majority of the people live along the Irrawaddy River, and River Delta, that typically flows to the Andaman Sea to the South where Yangon lies. Unfortunately, Burma is smashed right between the Indian and Sunda plate, right off the Burma microplates in the regions of Yangon at the South in the ocean, and the entire lush center of the country lies of Sagaing Fault Line, which is additionally subjected to occasional earthquakes. A recent one in 2016 destroyed/damaged over 170 ancient temples in Pagan. In addition though, this also gives Burma some geothermal activity; the country contains some of the few rare mud volcano spots in the world, mostly near the town of *Minbu*.

#### Mineralogy

Production-wise, Burma is loaded with various resources industries. More notably, they're known for producing precious tones like high-quality sapphire pearls, jades, and rubies. The country alone supplies about 90% of the world's rubies, mostly found through high-concentrated deposits around the Northern areas of Mandalay, like the Mogok Mine. They're also the 2nd largest producer of opium, after Afghanistan

#### Flora and Fauna

The country has an extremely diverse flora and fauna, with over 300 mammals, including the famous Burmese white elephants, 100 bird species, the national bird (peacock), and 300 species of reptiles.

## History

The land that Burma now possesses has been inhabited for eons, and in those long-ago times, the ancient populace did what of ancients of other lands did; painting pictures in caves, mostly, the animals that they've hunted. Examples of these animals are bison and deer. As the centuries slinked on by, people learned to work with metals, and to grow/cultivate rice, which to this day serves the country as its most valuable crop. Big changes did arrive in the 100 BC, when speakers of the Tibeto-Burman language group migrated into the region. Buddhism was introduced from India and also to Thailand, which also steadily spread and became and became the region's predominant religion (which it still is). Things did also shaken up rather roughly in the mid-8th CE, when the Kingdom of Nanzhao (Chinese: 南诏国), in southern China invaded Burma amidst the chaos of these times, the Bamar (Burmese: ဗမာ; otheriwse known as the *Burmese* or *Myanmars*) people entered the land, who are today the biggest ethnicity of the country. The Bamar established the Pagan Kingdom (Burmese: အယူမှားနိုင်ငံတော်), which existed from 9th CE till 1297, which ascended its power and influence under Anawrahta (Burmese: အနော်ရထာ; r. 1044-77), who conquered, and unified, and reformed, and fended off the Khmer Rouge (Khmer: ខ្មែរក្រហម; 802-1431) of Cambodia.

Over the next 2 centuries, the kingdom flourished and many thousands of temples were assembled, in the glittering capital of Pagan, like Ananda Temple [check the image], constructed during the reign of Kyansittha (Burmese: ကျန်စစ်သား; r. 1084-1112). Then, as it usually happened to many Asian kingdoms in history, the state started to weaken and decay because of economic issues, internal strife, and external threats, including a calamitous Mongol invasion, that decisively ceased the dynasty. Burma then fractured into smaller states; one of which, the Myinsaing Kingdom (Burmese: မြင်းဆိုင်း) amazingly defeated a second Mongol invasion. Anyways, the days of division lasted until the 1500s, when a certain king, Tabinshwehti (Burmese: တဗိန်ရွှေတိ၊; r. 1530-50), came along, went out, and conquered an empire for himself. He later ended up ,ike a miserable drunk, and later assassinated. He was succeeded by the brilliant and highly capable king Bayinnaung (Burmese: ဘုရင့်နောင်; r.1550-81), who conquered even more as the Toungoo Empire (1510-99), carving out a sizeable state, covering a large swathe of SEA; Which, following an old historical president, began to decline after its greates leader's death. Burma wouldn't be later unified again, until the rise of the Konbaung Dynasty (Burmese: ကုန်းဘောင်မင်းဆက်; 1752-1885), founded by Alaungpaya (Burmese: အလောင်းဘုရား; r. 1752-60), who spent most of his reign in war, concurring and crushing rebellions, taking merciless steps to ensure the mon-speaking people of the South would never pose a threat to the Burmese rule again. The following years saw more wars, including Burmese-Siamese War (Burmese: ဗမာ-မြန်မာစစ်ပွဲ, Siamese: สงครามพม่า-สยาม; 1765-67), where Siam got defeated in the conflict, the Sino-Burmese War (Burmese: တရုတ်-ဗမာစစ်ပွဲ, Chinese: 中缅战争), thwarting Qing Dynasty's attempt to conquer it by also winning in this war, and then a war happened again with Siam in between the years 1785 and 1786. Also, Burmese expansion in North-East India (a.k.a. the "Seven Sisters") wrankled the British, who were themselves entrenched in that country; and because of not being pleased with the prospect of local conquering competitors, the British declared a war on Burma, called the Anglo-Burmese War (Burmese: အင်္ဂလိပ်-မြန်မာစစ်ပွဲ; 1824-26). The British won the war, and annexed some territories for themselves. Britain also tried to expand further in Burma, and so it was, the Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852-53), where the British sealed victory again with hence annexing even more land to the Company Raj. Finally, the Third Anglo-Burmese War (1885) happened, and the rest of Burma's land was then ceded to the British Raj. Due to the Burmese Declination to the British Raj, the Burmese people were very upset with this outcome, and rebelled. However, due to being inferiorly weak against the British, they're brutally crushed down. Despite this, merits like building of railways, increasing-up of agriculture, and laboring from migrant Indian workers for less pay happened, and thus displaced many Burmese. The, humorously, the British themselves got displace in the Japanese Invasion of Burma (event of WWII; 1941-42), which saw thousands of many, many thousands of Burmese killed. Finally, in 1948, the country achieved independence, began to rebuild, and a Burmese diplomat, U Thant (Burmese: ဦးသန့်; 1909-74), became secretary general of the UN. Meanwhile, trouble was looming like a storm cloud over Burma itself. Things were not going so well, crime was high, and the government was not popular. Due to the government, a military coup, the 1962 Burmese Coup d'état, which installed a single-party dictatorship. The military even proved more helpless at running things. Poverty was inflating, along with the occurrence of protests (1962 and 1974-1977), where the relatively large one, the 8888 Uprising (1988), succeeded, but instead of getting general democracy, however, a new/different dictatorship took over. In 1989, the country's name was also changed to "Myanmar", and in 1990, elections were held, in which the party of the highly popular Aung San Suu Kyi (Burmese: ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်), a daughter of a hero of Burmese independence easily won. So, the dictatorship scrapped up the results and placed her under house arrest. In 2007, Myanmar erupted in a "Saffron Revolution" (2007), with protesting monks on the front line. Before reforms could be ratified, however, the worst-recorded natural disaster, in Myanmar's history, struck, which was a monstrous cyclone (Cyclone Nargis) that claimed over a 130,000 lives. In 2011, the government began implementing some reformatory changes Aung San Suu Kyi was released, and in 2015, her party won the elections, and she finally became the country's leader. But then Myanmar returned to the headlines for the wrong reasons again. With the Rohingya (an indigenous Muslim ethnical group) Genocide, thousands of Rohingya people faced persecution by the Buddhist nationalists, and the government itself as well. Violence and killings caused over a million Rohingya to flee their homes as refugees; Most went over to neighboring Bangladesh. Then, recently in 2021, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested again, and the military took control over the country (The 2021 Burmese Coup-d'état) again.

## Transportation

### Via Land

The railway system in Burma is antiquated, slow and generally uncomfortable, but it is pretty well interconnected as it virtually connects every corner of the country. On most routes a bus is faster and more reliable – it is not uncommon for express trains to be delayed by several hours, and local trains are even worse. Trains are also more expensive than buses, and since they are state-run, the money goes to the government. All that said, there are reasons why you might want to take a train at least once during your trip. One is that on a few routes, such as from Mandalay up to Naba and Katha, road transport is closed to foreigners. Another is for the experience itself: many routes run through areas of great beauty (the Goteik viaduct between Pyin Oo Lwin and Hsipaw is a good example), plus there is the chance to interact with local people.

### Via Air

In addition to Myanmar Airways, the state-owned national flag-carrier, an array of private airlines – among them Air KBZ, Air Mandalay, Air Bagan, Asian Wings, Yangon Airways and Golden Myanmar Airlines – run services on domestic routes and have offices in major towns and cities. Given the long journey times overland, and the relatively low prices of flight tickets, travelling by plane can be an attractive choice. In a few cases, such as visiting Kengtung, it is the only option as overland routes are closed to foreigners. Many services fly on circular routes, stopping at several airports on the way. At each stop, some passengers will get off, some will get on, and some will stay on board and wait for a later stop. One quirk of this is that it may be easier to make a journey one way (for example, Nyaung U to Thandwe) than the other way (Thandwe to Nyaung U).

### Via Sea

Yangon also holds the largest sea ports, the Myanmar Port Authority.

## Trivia

* The capital, Naypyidaw, which also means "the abode of the king" (settled: 2005) is actually a young-planned city.
	+ Humorously, there's no official reason as to why the city was built. However there are still certain theories that go like this:

**Theory 1: Geographical Strategic Significance**
It was built because Naypyidaw is further up North, and can centralize the SoL (Seat of Legislation), which gives stability to all states and regions.

**Theory 2: Cyclones**
Geographically, Yangon, the ever-lasting former capital city, is closer to the Andaman Sea (which flows to Bay of Bengal). Therefore, it can frequently get attacked with cyclones, since cyclones from Bay of Bengal are really destructive, can flow past the Cocos and hit Yangon. Naypyidaw is relatively within the Burmese mainland, and has a really low chance of being stuck by a cyclone.

**Theory 3: Yangon-Overpopulation**
Yangon is too much overcrowded and can give barely a seat for the government. Naypyidaw, on the other hand, was built to replace Yangon, as it is already less-populated.

***Note:*** Some people were told to get off from Yangon, but it wasn't really effective much when compared to changing the capital to Naypyidaw.

**Theory 4:**
Some people argue that the capital change to Naypyidaw was a passion project by General Than Shwe, and he used a series of lucky numbers and fortune tellers to determine the area it should be built on.

* U Thant was the General Secretary of the United Nations for 10 years (1961-71).
	+ He is the very first non-European who holds this position.
* In Serbian, "Myanmar" means wedding ring.
* The most noticeable mud volcanoes lie in the countries of Azerbaijan and Burma.
* Unsurprisingly, due to having loads of jades, Burma has Jade Pagoda which is a Pagoda made of jade.
* Burma is part of the broader region of the Golden Triangle.
	+ In a nutshell, this is basically the largest drug-productive region around the SEA.
	+ Most of the Burmese GT areas lie in the Shan State
* Till this day, Burma is actually the largest producer of methamphetamines in the world.
* According to the Bangkok Post, the illegal trade is estimated to produce about 2 billion dollars annually, or somewhere around 40% of their foreign exchange