Capital:
Naypyidaw (founded in November of 2005).
Major Cities:
Former capital Yangon (Rangoon), population 6 million.
Mandalay, population 925,000.
Burma, now officially known as "Myanmar," is ruled by a military dictatorship led by Senior General Than Shwe. This ruling junta keeps strict control over the Burmese people, suppressing all free press, limiting access to the internet, and using tactics such as disappearances, torture, systematic rape, and extrajudiciary execution to deal with dissidents.
The outlawed opposition party, the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, is led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who won an abortive democratic presidential election in December of 1990. Since that time, she has been kept under house arrest by the junta.
The official language of Burma is Burmese, a Sino-Tibetan language that is the native tongue of slightly more than half of the country's people.
The government also officially recognizes several minority languages that predominate in Burma's Autonomous States: Jingpho, Mon, Karen, and Shan.
Burma probably has about 55.5 million people, although census figures are considered unreliable. Burma is an exporter of both migrant workers (with several million in Thailand alone), and of refugees. Burmese refugees total more than 300,000 people in neighboring Thailand, India, Bangladesh, and Malaysia.
The government of Burma officially recognizes 135 ethnic groups. By far the largest is the Bamar, at about 68%. Significant minorities include the Shan (10%), Kayin (7%), Rakhine (4%), ethnic Chinese (3%), Mon (2%), and ethnic Indians (2%). There are also small numbers of Kachin, Anglo-Indians, and Chin.
Burma is primarily a Theravada Buddhist society, with about 89% of the population. Most Burmese are very devote, and treat monks with great respect.
The government, surprisingly, does not control religious practice in Burma. Thus, minority religions exist openly, including Christianity (4% of the population), Islam (4%), Animism (1%), and tiny groups of Hindus, Taoists, and Mahayana Buddhists.
Burma is the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of 261,970 square miles (678,500 square kilometers).
The country is bordered on the northwest by India and Bangladesh, on the northeast by Tibet and China, by Laos and Thailand to the southeast, and by the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea to the south. Burma's coastline is about 1,200 miles long (1,930 kilometers).
The highest point in Burma is Hkakabo Razi, with an elevation of 19,295 feet (5,881 meters). Burma's major rivers are the Irrawaddy, Thanlwin, and Sittang.
The climate of Burma is dictated by the monsoons, which bring up to 200 inches (5,000 mm) of rain to coastal regions each summer. The "dry zone" of interior Burma still receives up to 40 inches (1,000 mm) of precipitation per year.
Temperatures in the highlands average about 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius), while the coast and delta areas average a steamy 90 degrees (32 Celsius).
Under British colonial rule, Burma was the richest country in Southeast Asia, awash in rubies, oil, and valuable timber. Sadly, after decades of mismanagement by post-independence dictators, Burma has become one of the poorest nations in the world.
Burma's economy depends on agriculture for 56% of GDP, services for 35%, and industry for a miniscule 8%. Major export products include rice, oil, Burmese teak, rubies, jade, and also 8% of the world's total illegal drugs, mostly opium and methamphetamines.
Estimates of the per capita income are unreliable, but it's probably about $230 US.
Burma's currency is the kyat.
Humans have lived in what is now Burma for at least 15,000 years. Bronze Age artefacts have been discovered at Nyaunggan, and the Samon Valley was settled by rice agriculturalists as early as 500 B.C.
In the 1st century B.C., the Pyu people moved into northern Burma and established 18 city-states, including Sri Ksetra, Binnaka, and Halingyi. The principal city, Sri Ksetra, was the power-center of the region from 90 to 656 A.D. After the seventh century, it was replaced by a rival city, possibly Halingyi. This new capital was destroyed by the Nanzhao kingdom in the mid-800s, bringing the Pyu period to a close.
When the Khmer Empire based at Angkor extended its power, the Mon people from Thailand were forced west into Burma. The Mon established kingdoms in southern Burma including Thaton and Pegu in the 6th to 8th centuries.
By 850, the Pyu people had been absorbed by another group, the Bamar, who ruled from a powerful kingdom with its capital at Bagan. The Bagan Kingdom slowly developed in strength until it was able to defeat the Mon at Thaton in 1057, and unite all of Burma under one king for the first time in history. The Bagan ruled until 1289, when their capital was captured by the Mongols.
After the fall of Bagan, Burma was divided into several rival states, including Ava and Bago.
Burma was united once more in 1527 under the Toungoo Dynasty, which ruled from 1486-1599 in central Burma. The king over-reached, however, trying to conquer more territory than his revenues could sustain, and kingdom soon lost its grip on several neighboring areas. The state collapsed entirely in 1752, partly at the instigation of French colonial officials.
The period between 1759 and 1824 saw Burma at the apex of its power under the Konbaung Dynasty. From its new capital at Yangon (Rangoon), the Konbaung kingdom conquered Thailand, bits of southern China, as well as Manipur, Arakan, and Assam, India. This incursion into India brought unwelcome British attention, however.
The First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826) saw Britain and Siam band together to defeat Burma. Burma lost some of its recent conquests, but was basically unscathed. However, the British soon began to covet Burma's rich resources, and initiated the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852. The British took control of southern Burma at that time, and added the rest of the country to its Indian sphere after the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885.
Although Burma produced a lot of wealth under British colonial rule, almost all of the benefit went to British officials and their imported Indian underlings. The Burmese people got little benefit. This resulted in the growth of banditry, protests, and rebellion.
The British responded to Burmese discontent with a heavy-handed style later echoed by indigenous military dictators. In 1938, British police weilding batons killed a Rangoon University student during a protest. Soldiers also fired into a monk-led protest in Mandalay, killing 17 people.
Burmese nationalists allied themselves with Japan during World War II, and Burma gained its independence from Britain in 1948.
