Myanmar
A land of pagodas and rivers between India and China
Myanmar, also known as Burma, occupies a strategic wedge between India, China, and Thailand, its lowlands threaded by the great Irrawaddy River and ringed by some of Asia's highest frontier mountains. The plain of Bagan, studded with thousands of brick temples, recalls a powerful medieval kingdom, while the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda dominates Yangon. Rich in jade, gas, and teak, the country has nonetheless been wracked by decades of military rule, civil war, and isolation.
The Irrawaddy and Salween rivers drain a country framed by horseshoe-shaped highlands, rising to Hkakabo Razi in the far north, the highest peak in Southeast Asia. The central dry zone gives way to fertile delta and long tropical coasts on the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. The climate is monsoonal. Agriculture, natural gas, jade and ruby mining, and timber are mainstays of an economy strained by conflict and sanctions.
Successive Burmese kingdoms unified the Irrawaddy valley before British conquest in the nineteenth century. Independence came in 1948, followed by long periods of military dictatorship. A brief democratic opening in the 2010s ended with a 2021 coup and renewed armed resistance across much of the country. The persecution and mass displacement of the Rohingya drew international condemnation. The military relocated the capital to the planned city of Naypyidaw in 2005.