Myanmar
Name
| Official name | Republic of the Union of Myanmar — Pyidaunzu Thanmăda Myăma Nainngandaw (ပြည်ထောင်စု သမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) |
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| Former names | The Union of Burma (1948–74 and 1988–89); the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma (1974–88); the Union of Myanmar (1989–2010); British Burma, a province of India until 1937 and a colony after; the Konbaung kingdom of Ava, Amarapura and Mandalay; the Pagan Empire |
| Demonym | Burmese; Myanmar |
| Meaning of the name | Myanma, the literary name of the Bamar people, and Bama its spoken form, one name in two registers — "the strong and swift" by the folk reading; Burma the British rendering of Bama, Myanmar the generals' choice of 18 June 1989 for the whole union and its peoples, accepted by the UN and refused by the democracy movement and the United States; the kings' name for their land since the 12th century |
| Motto | None official |
Quick facts
| Capital | Naypyidaw — Nay Pyi Taw, "the abode of kings," built from 2002 and the capital since 6 November 2005 in place of Yangon; about 1 million by the count, the ministries and the parliament in a city of empty boulevards; the Union Territory |
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| Largest cities | Yangon — Rangoon — about 5.5 million, the largest city and port, the capital of 1885–2005; Mandalay, about 1.5 million, the last royal capital of 1857 and the city of the earthquake of 2025; Naypyidaw; Mawlamyine of the Mon; Bago; Pathein of the delta; Monywa; Meiktila; Myitkyina of the Kachin; Taunggyi of the Shan; Sittwe of Rakhine, under siege; Lashio of the war |
| Official language | Burmese — the Myanmar language of the Bamar, the mother tongue of two-thirds and the language of the state, the schools and the sangha, written in its round script of the Mon; the ethnic languages of the states, Shan, Karen, Kachin, Chin, Mon, Rakhine, Kayah and a hundred more; English of the courts of the colony, the business and the elite; Chinese of the border trade and the Mandalay shops |
| Currency | Kyat — MMK, K; 100 pyas; since 1 July 1952; the reference rate about 2,100 to the U.S. dollar and the market above 4,000; the yuan allowed for investment since 16 March 2026 |
| Time zone | Myanmar Time, UTC+6:30; no summer time |
| Calling code | +95 |
| Internet domain | .mm |
| ISO 3166 codes | MM · MMR · 104 |
| Vehicle registration code | MYA |
| Driving side | Right — since 1970, when Ne Win switched it from the left by a general's whim, the cars still mostly right-hand drive from Japan |
| Electricity | 230 V, 50 Hz; plug types C, D, F and G |
| Independence | 4 January 1948, from the United Kingdom, at 4:20 a.m., the astrologers' hour — the Union of Burma under U Nu, outside the Commonwealth, six months after Aung San, the father of the nation, was assassinated with six of his ministers on 19 July 1947 |
| National days | 4 January, Independence Day; 12 February, Union Day, for the Panglong Agreement of 1947; 2 March, Peasants' Day, the day of Ne Win's coup; 27 March, Armed Forces Day, the parade of the generals; 19 July, Martyrs' Day, for Aung San; the Thingyan water festival of April, the Burmese new year, four days; the full moons of Kasong, Waso, Thadingyut and Tazaungmone of the Buddhist calendar; 8 August, the day of 1988, marked by the opposition alone |
| Constitution | 29 May 2008 — the Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, drafted by the generals over fifteen years and approved by referendum on 10 and 24 May 2008 with 92% in the week after Cyclone Nargis, in force 31 January 2011: a president elected by the parliament for five years, the two houses with a quarter of the seats reserved for serving officers, the commander-in-chief with the defense, home and border ministries and the power of the emergency of Article 417 that the coup invoked, the bar on a president with foreign-citizen children that kept Aung San Suu Kyi from the office; the "disciplined democracy" of the military; the Constitutions of 1947 and 1974 before |
| Population | 51,486,253 at the census of 2014, the first in 31 years; the count of 2024 in three-fifths of the townships estimating 51.3 million; about 55 million (UN, 2026 est.) — about 3.5 million displaced within, 1.1 million Rohingya in Bangladesh, millions more working in Thailand |
| Area | 676,578 km² (261,228 sq mi) — land 653,508 km², water 23,070 km²; the largest of mainland Southeast Asia, the fortieth in the world |
Flag & national symbols
| National flag | Three horizontal bands of yellow, green and red with a large white five-pointed star at the center — the yellow for solidarity, the green for peace, tranquility and the green land, the red for courage and decisiveness, the star for the union of the peoples; the flag of the Constitution of 2008, raised 21 October 2010 by the generals' order three weeks before their election, in place of the red flag of the socialist republic of 1974 with its blue canton of the cogwheel and the rice, itself the heir of the flag of 1948; the colors of the Burma of 1943 under the Japanese.Flag of Myanmar |
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| State seal | A map of the country on a wreath of laurel between two chinthe, the guardian lions of the pagodas, under a white star, with the country's name in Burmese on the ribbon beneath — the seal of 2010, the cogwheel and the rice of the socialist seal of 1974 removed with the flag |
| National anthem | "Kaba Ma Kyei" ("Till the End of the World") — the song written by Saya Tin in 1930 for the Dobama Asiayone, the "We Burmans" nationalists, its opening bars sung with the palms together; adopted at independence in 1947 and kept by every regime since; the first verse in the traditional style and the second the marching one |
| National motto | None official |
| National colors | Yellow, green and red; the gold of the pagodas |
| National animal | The chinthe of the seal, the lion of the temple gates; the tiger of Hukaung, the largest tiger reserve in the world; the Ayeyarwady dolphin that fishes with the fishermen of the river; widely cited |
| National bird | The green peafowl — the fighting peacock of the kings' banners and of the students of 1988, the emblem of the National League for Democracy on its flag; the grey peacock-pheasant; widely cited |
| National flower | The padauk — the golden blossoms of Pterocarpus that open for a day in April with the first rain of Thingyan, the flower of the new year; the thazin orchid of the queens' hair; widely cited |
| National tree | The teak — the golden wood of the forests of the Bago Yoma, the pagodas, the palaces and the British navy, the largest stands in the world; widely cited |
| National dish | Mohinga — the rice noodles in the fish broth of lemongrass and banana stem eaten at breakfast from the street stalls, the dish of the nation; lahpet thoke, the fermented tea leaf salad served to every guest; the curries of oil, the ohn no khao swè coconut noodles of the Shan, the Shan noodles; the tea shops of the towns; widely cited |
| National sport | Chinlone — the cane-ball game of the circle, six players keeping the rattan ball aloft with feet, knees and heads in the art of the festivals, a display and not a contest, the game of 1,500 years; lethwei, the bare-knuckle boxing of the head-butts; football, the league and the Asian Cup of 1968; the Southeast Asian Games hosted at Naypyidaw in 2013; widely cited |
| Symbol status | The flag and the seal by the Constitution of 2008 and the law of 2010; the anthem by the law of 1947 and the Constitution; the animals, bird, flower, tree, dishes and sports widely cited |
Geography
| Location | Southeast Asia, the westernmost country of the mainland — Bangladesh and India to the west, China to the north and northeast, Laos and Thailand to the east, the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea to the south; the Ayeyarwady basin between the Arakan Yoma and the Shan plateau; the Tropic of Cancer across its north |
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| Land borders | 6,522 km (4,053 mi) with five neighbors — Thailand 2,416, China 2,129, India 1,468, Bangladesh 271, Laos 238; the Chinese border of the Wa, the Kokang and the trade of Muse, the Thai border of the Karen and the Myawaddy road reopened 2 April 2026 and the refugee camps, the Bangladesh border of the Rohingya crossings and the Arakan Army, the Indian border of the Chin and the fence of Manipur |
| Coastline | 1,930 km (1,199 mi) — the Rakhine coast of Sittwe and Kyaukphyu under the Arakan Army's siege, the delta of the nine mouths of the Ayeyarwady, the Gulf of Mottama, the Tanintharyi coast and the Myeik Archipelago of 800 islands and the Moken sea nomads; the Andaman Sea's gas fields; Ngapali and Ngwe Saung of the beaches |
| Highest point | Hkakabo Razi, 5,881 m (19,295 ft), in the far north of Kachin State — the highest peak of Southeast Asia by the survey of 1925, Gamlang Razi of 5,870 m the rival of the GPS |
| Lowest point | The Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, 0 m |
| Mean elevation | 702 m (2,303 ft) |
| Rivers | The Ayeyarwady — the Irrawaddy — 2,170 km from the confluence of the Mali and N'Mai above Myitkyina past Bhamo, Mandalay, Bagan and Pyay to the delta, the country's highway; the Chindwin, 1,207 km, its great tributary of the Sagaing war; the Thanlwin — the Salween — 2,815 km from Tibet through the Shan gorges to Mawlamyine, the longest free-flowing river of Asia; the Sittaung; the Mekong for 200 km of the Laos border; the Kaladan of Rakhine and the Indian port; the Mali Hka of the jade |
| Lakes | Inle, 116 km² on the Shan plateau at 880 m, the lake of the Intha leg-rowers and the floating gardens, the pagodas and the silk; Indawgyi of Kachin, 120 km², the largest natural lake; the Moeyingyi wetland of the birds; the Meiktila lake; the reservoirs of the dams |
| Terrain | The central lowland of the Ayeyarwady and the dry zone of the Bamar between the Arakan Yoma of the west and the Shan plateau of the east at 1,000 m with the Salween gorges; the mountains of the north, the Kachin hills of the eastern Himalaya, the Chin Hills and the Naga; the Bago Yoma of the teak; the delta; the long Tanintharyi coast to the isthmus of Kra; Mount Popa, the volcano of the nats; the Sagaing fault under Mandalay and Naypyidaw |
| Climate | Tropical monsoon — the rains of the southwest monsoon from May to October, 5,000 mm on the Rakhine coast and 2,500 at Yangon, 800 in the dry zone of Mandalay; the cool season of November to February, the hot of March and April to 45°C; the snow of the Kachin north; the cyclones of the Bay of Bengal |
| Natural hazards | Earthquakes of the Sagaing fault — the Mandalay earthquake of 28 March 2025, magnitude 7.7, 3,800 dead by the regime's count and more by others, Mandalay, Sagaing and Naypyidaw wrecked, the Ava bridge down, felt in Bangkok; the Bago quake of 1930; cyclones — Nargis of 2–3 May 2008 over the delta with 138,000 dead, the deadliest in the country's history, the junta's refusal of aid, Mocha of May 2023 over Rakhine, the floods of Typhoon Yagi of September 2024 with 400 dead; the floods of the rivers every monsoon; the landslides of the jade mines of Hpakant, 170 dead in 2020; the fuel and fertilizer shortage of the Middle East war of 2026 |
| Natural resources | Jade — Hpakant in Kachin, about 70% of the world's jadeite, a trade of tens of billions; rubies of Mogok, the finest on earth, and the sapphires; teak; natural gas of the Yadana, Zawtika and Shwe fields piped to Thailand and China; oil of the old Yenangyaung; tin of the Wa hills, the third producer; copper of Letpadaung; gold; the heavy rare earths of the Kachin border at Pangwa, the largest source of dysprosium and terbium in the world under the Kachin army since 2024; hydropower; the rice of the delta; the opium of the Shan hills, the world's largest since 2023 |
| Land use | Agricultural land about 19%, the rice paddies of the delta and the dry zone; forest about 48% by the count, the teak and the bamboo, the fastest deforestation of Asia |
| National parks | Hkakabo Razi National Park of the north; Inle Lake, a biosphere reserve since 2015; Indawgyi; Lampi Marine National Park of the Myeik islands; Alaungdaw Kathapa of the tigers and elephants; Popa Mountain of the nats; the Hukaung Valley tiger reserve of 21,000 km², the largest in the world; Natmataung of the Chin; about 6% of the land protected in name |
| UNESCO World Heritage | 2 — the Pyu Ancient Cities (2014), Halin, Beikthano and Sri Ksetra, the brick cities of the first millennium; Bagan (2019), the 3,500 temples, stupas and monasteries of the Pagan kings of the 11th to 13th centuries on the Ayeyarwady, the earthquake of 2016 and the war's empty hotels; the Thingyan new year festival (2025) on the intangible list; Inle and Mrauk-U, the Arakanese capital, on the tentative list |
| Administrative divisions | 7 regions of the Bamar — Ayeyarwady, Bago, Magway, Mandalay, Sagaing, Tanintharyi and Yangon — and 7 states of the peoples — Chin, Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Mon, Rakhine and Shan — with the Union Territory of Naypyidaw; the 5 self-administered zones and the Wa self-administered division, the Wa state in all but name; 330 townships; the state and region assemblies elected in the polls of 2025–26 and the chief ministers named by the president |
People
| Population | 51,486,253 (census of 2014); about 55 million (2026 est.) |
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| Population density | About 80 per km² (210 per sq mi) — the delta and the dry zone crowded, the Kachin north and the Chin hills empty |
| Population growth | About 0.7% a year — the emigration of the young to Thailand and the conscription's flight, the war's dead |
| Median age | About 29 years |
| Life expectancy | About 67 years |
| Fertility rate | About 2.1 births per woman |
| Urban population | About 32% |
| Adult literacy | About 89% — the monastery schools of the villages |
| Ethnic groups | Bamar about 68%, the people of the valley and the state; Shan about 9%, the Tai of the plateau; Karen about 7%, of the hills of the Thai border and the delta, the oldest insurgency; Rakhine about 4%, of the western coast; Chinese about 3%, the Mandalay traders and the Kokang; Indian about 2%, the remnant of the colony's million; Mon about 2%, the first civilization; Kachin, Chin, Kayah and the rest — 135 "national races" by the official list of 1982 and the Rohingya of Rakhine outside it, about 600,000 left in the state and 1.1 million in Bangladesh, "Bengalis" to the state; the Wa of their own army; the Naga; the Moken of the sea |
| Languages | Burmese by about 65% as the mother tongue and by most as the second, the Sino-Tibetan language of the Mon script and the honorific "U" and "Daw"; Shan, Karen in its Sgaw and Pwo, Kachin, Chin in its dozens, Mon, Rakhine, Kayah, Rohingya, the Chinese of the border and the Hindustani of Yangon; English by the educated, the language of the pre-war university; about 100 languages in all |
| Religion | Buddhist 87.9% — the Theravada of the monks in saffron, half a million of them, the pagodas of every hill, the Shwedagon of Yangon, the sangha that marched in the Saffron Revolution of 2007 and the nationalist monks of Ma Ba Tha; Christian 6.2%, the Baptists of the Kachin, Chin and Karen of the American missions; Muslim 4.3%, the Rohingya, the Kaman and the Indian Muslims of the towns, the citizenship law of 1982 their exclusion; Hindu 0.5%; the animists of the hills 0.8% and the nats of the spirit shrines beneath the Buddhism of all (census of 2014) |
| Human Development Index | 0.609 (2023 data, 2025 report) — medium; about 154th of 193 |
| The Rohingya | The Muslim people of northern Rakhine, about 1.1 million in the camps of Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, the largest refugee settlement in the world, since the army's "clearance operations" of August 2017 that drove out 740,000 in weeks with the killings, the rapes and the burned villages the UN's mission called genocidal in intent; stateless under the citizenship law of 1982 that names them illegal "Bengalis"; the Gambia's case at the International Court of Justice since 11 November 2019 with the final judgment awaited in 2026, the International Criminal Court prosecutor's request of 27 November 2024 for a warrant against Min Aung Hlaing for deportation and persecution, the Argentine court's warrant of February 2025; the 600,000 who stayed under the Arakan Army's rule since 2024 and its abuses, the conscription of Rohingya men by the army of 2024, the boats to Malaysia and the deaths at sea |
| The displaced | About 3.5 million displaced inside the country by the war since 2021 by the UN's count, the largest displacement of the region, in the Sagaing forests, the Karen border camps, the Rakhine villages and the monasteries; 20 million in need of aid, a third of the people; the poverty of about half the population by UNDP's survey of 2024, the middle class of the 2010s gone; the earthquake's 200,000 homeless of 2025; the fuel and fertilizer crisis of 2026 on the rice planting; the 100,000 young men conscripted since 2024 and the millions who fled it to Thailand |
| Sport | Chinlone of the festival circles; lethwei; football, the Southeast Asian Games' golds of the 1960s and 1970s and the Asian Games silvers of 1954 and 1958, the Myanmar National League; the Olympics since 1948 without a medal; Aung La N Sang, the "Burmese Python" of the ONE Championship; the Southeast Asian Games hosted at Naypyidaw in 2013; the Bagan marathon of the temples |
| Diaspora | About 4 to 5 million Burmese abroad — Thailand first with 2 million registered and more without, the fishing boats, the building sites and the factories, the flight from the conscription since 2024; Malaysia; Singapore of the professionals; the United States, the Chin and Karen of the refugee resettlements; India; the Rohingya of Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia; the remittances about US$3 billion and the informal hundi |
Government
| Form of government | Unitary presidential republic under the Constitution of 2008 in form and a military state in substance — the president elected by the parliament as head of state and government, the parliament of two houses with a quarter of the seats held by serving officers, the commander-in-chief the master of the defense, home and border ministries; the state of emergency of the coup of 1 February 2021 ended 31 July 2025, the junta's State Administration Council dissolved the same day for a "State Security and Peace Commission," the election of the winter and the president of April 2026; "a civilian façade" over "abusive military rule," the International Crisis Group's reading, "the disciplined democracy" of the generals' |
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| President | Min Aung Hlaing (independent, of the Union Solidarity and Development Party's support), since 10 April 2026 — the eleventh president; born 3 July 1956 at Dawei, the son of a public works official, a law student of 1972 who joined the Defense Services Academy at the third try, the commander of the campaigns against the Kokang and the Shan, the commander-in-chief from 30 March 2011 to 30 March 2026, the general of the Rohingya campaign of 2017 and of the coup of 1 February 2021 that jailed Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint on the morning the new parliament was to sit, the chairman of the State Administration Council, the prime minister of 2021–25 and the acting president after Myint Swe's death of 7 August 2025; nominated on 30 March 2026, elected vice president by the lower house on 31 March and president by the electoral college of the whole parliament on 3 April 2026 with 429 of the 584 votes, sworn 10 April; the subject of the ICC prosecutor's warrant request of 27 November 2024, of the Argentine warrant of February 2025 and of the Gambia's genocide case; "the sole responsibility of building a federal democratic union," his inaugural speech of 10 April, the coup's justifications restated; the state of the union address of 31 July 2026 after his 100-day plan; Xi Jinping's guest at Tianjin on 30 August 2025 and at the Beijing parade of 3 September beside Kim Jong Un and Putin |
| The vice presidents | Nyo Saw, the first vice president since 10 April 2026 — the retired general of the Myanmar Economic Corporation, the army's conglomerate, since 2014, the prime minister of 31 July 2025 – 10 April 2026, the president's confidant, the electoral college's runner-up with 126 votes; Nan Ni Ni Aye, the second vice president, the USDP's chair in Kayin State, one of the few women in the high offices, 29 votes; the office of prime minister abolished on 10 April 2026 with the junta's cabinet; the Union Government of 34 ministers, mostly the junta's, sworn 10 April, Tin Maung Swe, the former ambassador to Beijing, the foreign minister; the Union Advisory Council under the retired Soe Win, the deputy of the coup years |
| The 2025–26 election | The general election held in three phases on 28 December 2025, 11 January and 25 January 2026 — the first since the annulled vote of 2020, under the regime's laws, its Union Election Commission and its electronic voting machines of Myanmar's own design, with the National League for Democracy dissolved on 28 March 2023 for refusing to register and 40 parties barred or gone, polling canceled in about a third of the townships of the war; the Union Solidarity and Development Party, the army's party of retired officers under Khin Yi, 339 of the 420 contested seats by the Crisis Group's count, 232 of 263 in the lower house and 109 of 157 in the upper by the commission's first tallies, the National Unity Party of the old socialist regime 68, the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party 39; turnout 54.22% by the authorities, in the areas that voted; with the 25% of military appointees, the military and its party 86% of the parliament; "a sham election," "neither free nor fair," the UN, the European Parliament and Britain, "a return to the multiparty democratic path," the commission; the deadly attacks on the polls fewer than feared; the parliament convened 16 and 18 March 2026 |
| The civil war | The war of the coup — the Spring Revolution of the civil disobedience movement and the strikes of February 2021 shot down in the streets, more than 7,000 killed and 29,000 arrested by the count of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners; the National Unity Government of the ousted lawmakers of 16 April 2021, Duwa Lashi La its acting president, its People's Defense Forces of the villages and the towns in the Sagaing forests and the dry zone, the "people's defensive war" declared 7 September 2021; the ethnic armies of seventy years, the Kachin Independence Army, the Karen National Union, the Arakan Army, the Ta'ang and the Kokang of the Three Brotherhood Alliance whose Operation 1027 of 27 October 2023 broke the army in the northern Shan hills and took Lashio, the northeast command, on 3 August 2024; the army's turn of 2025 — the conscription of February 2024, 100,000 young men taken at 4,000 a month, the drones, the Russian and Chinese jets and the airstrikes on the schools and the festivals, the Pazigyi strike of 11 April 2023 with 170 dead and the Sagaing school of 12 May 2025 with 22 children; the Chinese-brokered ceasefires that returned Lashio to the army on 22 April 2025 and took the Ta'ang from Nawnghkio, Kyaukme, Hsipaw and Mogok, the Mandalay–Muse road half reopened; Tagaung, the last resistance town of Mandalay Region, taken 10 March 2026; the Arakan Army holding 14 of Rakhine's 17 townships with Sittwe and Kyaukphyu besieged and blockaded, the Kachin holding the rare earths of Pangwa and failing at Bhamo, the Karen the Thai border towns, the Karenni squeezed; about 50,000 to 80,000 dead by the conflict counts, 3.5 million displaced; "the front lines have stabilised, but the conflict has not abated," the Crisis Group wrote in June 2026; no peace process, the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement of 2015 a shell |
| Aung San Suu Kyi | The daughter of Aung San, the leader of the National League for Democracy from its founding in 1988, the Nobel laureate of 1991 held under house arrest for 15 of the 21 years to her release of 13 November 2010, the State Counsellor of 2016–21 who defended the army at The Hague in 2019; arrested on the morning of the coup, tried in secret and sentenced to 33 years reduced to 27 on charges from the walkie-talkies to corruption, held in solitary confinement at Naypyidaw and then in a house of the compound, 81 years old in June 2026, her health the question her son raises from abroad; her party dissolved, her election of 2020 annulled by the generals' claim of a fraud the commission of the time and the observers found none of |
| Parliament | The Assembly of the Union — Pyidaungsu Hluttaw — the House of Representatives, the Pyithu Hluttaw, of 440 with 110 seats of the officers, Khin Yi (USDP) the Speaker since 16 March 2026, and the House of Nationalities, the Amyotha Hluttaw, of 224 with 56 of the officers, Aung Lin Dwe, the retired general, its Speaker and the Speaker of the Union since 18 March 2026; the USDP's 339, the National Unity Party's 68, the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party's 39; the parliament of Naypyidaw's 31 buildings, one session a year required |
| The next election | The general election of 2030 by the five-year cycle of the Constitution; the presidential election by the parliament after it |
| The courts and the law | The Supreme Court and the Constitutional Tribunal of the regime's judges; the military tribunals of the martial-law townships; the death penalty carried out on 25 July 2022 for the first time in decades on the democracy activists Phyo Zeya Thaw and Kyaw Min Yu, "Ko Jimmy"; the sedition and the counterterrorism laws of the coup, the VPN law of 2025; the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners' count of 22,000 political prisoners; the International Criminal Court's request of a warrant against the president, the Argentine warrant, the Gambia's genocide case at the ICJ awaiting its judgment in 2026, the Independent Investigative Mechanism of the UN |
| China and the powers | China the patron since the coup — Xi's meeting with Min Aung Hlaing at Tianjin on 30 August 2025, the first on Chinese soil, the fighter jets, the drones and the counter-drone systems, the ceasefires forced on the Kokang and the Ta'ang and the arms sales of the Wa cut off, the Kyaukphyu port and the pipelines of the corridor to Yunnan, the yuan of 16 March 2026, Wang Yi at Naypyidaw on 25 April 2026, the foreign minister a former envoy to Beijing; Russia of the Su-30s, the reactor deal and the visits of 2025; ASEAN of the Five-Point Consensus of April 2021 that barred the generals from its summits and of the drift back, Anwar's meetings, the Philippines' chair of 2026; India of the Kaladan port and the border fence, hedging; Thailand of the border trade and the workers; the United States of the sanctions on the generals and the army's companies since 2021, the Burma Act, the tariff of 40% of 2025 and the aid cuts; Japan of the Thilawa zone; the European Union's sanctions; the isolation eased by the election, "calibrated," the Crisis Group counsels |
| Local government | The state and region assemblies elected in 2025–26 with the USDP majorities, the chief ministers appointed by the president; the Naypyidaw Council; the self-administered zones of the Wa, the Kokang, the Pa-O, the Danu, the Naga and the Palaung; the general administration department of the army under the townships; the areas of the resistance run by the NUG's township administrations and the ethnic administrations of the Karen, the Kachin and the Arakan |
| Defense | The Tatmadaw — the Myanmar Armed Forces — about 150,000 effective by the estimates from the 300,000 claimed, the desertions and the deaths, the 100,000 conscripts of 2024–26; General Ye Win Oo the commander-in-chief since 30 March 2026, the former chief of military intelligence, General Kyaw Swar Lin his deputy; the air force of the Russian Su-30s and Yak-130s and the Chinese FTC-2000s that bomb the villages; the navy of the frigates; the Border Guard Forces and the pyusawhti militias; the ethnic armies of about 100,000 against them, the Arakan Army of 40,000, the Wa of 30,000 neutral and armed by China, the Kachin of 15,000, the Karen, the Ta'ang; the defense budget the largest item of the state |
| United Nations | Member since 19 April 1948; U Thant the secretary-general of 1961–71, the only Asian until Ban Ki-moon; the Security Council's first resolution on the country, 2669 of 21 December 2022, demanding the violence end; the ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun of the ousted government still holding the seat at the General Assembly, the credentials deferred year after year; the special envoy Julie Bishop; the ICJ, the ICC and the investigative mechanism |
| Other memberships | ASEAN (1997), the summits closed to its generals since 2021; the Non-Aligned Movement, a founder of 1961; BIMSTEC of the Bay of Bengal; the WTO (1995); the Colombo Plan; the Mekong-Lanchang cooperation of China; the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as a dialogue partner; the Commonwealth left at independence in 1948 |
Economy
| GDP (nominal) | About US$65 billion (2025, IMF) |
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| GDP per capita | About US$1,200 (2025) — the poorest of Southeast Asia |
| GDP per capita (PPP) | About US$5,000 (2025) |
| GDP growth | About −1% in the year of the earthquake and the war to March 2026, the World Bank's count, after the collapse of 18% in 2021; inflation about 25–30%; the kyat's market rate above 4,000 to the dollar against the reference rate of 2,100; the fuel prices doubled and the fertilizer short in the Middle East war of 2026, "a grave shock to an already fragile economy," the Crisis Group; the poverty of half the people |
| Economy by sector | Agriculture about 22% and half the workers; industry about 35% with the gas, the mines and the garments; services about 43% |
| Currency | Kyat (MMK) |
| Gas and the pipelines | The offshore gas of Yadana and Zawtika in the Gulf of Mottama piped to Thailand since 1998 and of Shwe off Rakhine piped to Kunming since 2013 with the oil pipeline of 2017 from Kyaukphyu, the largest export at about US$1 billion a year and the regime's hard currency, the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise under the U.S. and EU sanctions since 2022, TotalEnergies and Chevron gone from Yadana in 2022, PTT and the Chinese in; the declining fields; the Kyaukphyu deep port and economic zone of China's corridor, besieged by the Arakan Army |
| Jade, rubies and the rare earths | The jade of Hpakant, about 70% of the world's and a trade of US$30 billion at the peak by Global Witness, most of it smuggled to China, the mines of the generals, the Kachin army and the drug lords, the landslides of the scavengers; the rubies and sapphires of Mogok, the "pigeon's blood" of the auctions, the town returned to the army by the Ta'ang in November 2025; the heavy rare earths of Pangwa and Chipwi on the Chinese border, the world's largest source of dysprosium and terbium for the magnets of the electric cars and the wind turbines, under the Kachin Independence Army since October 2024 and shipped to China for processing; the tin of the Wa at Man Maw; the gold; the copper of Letpadaung of the Chinese Wanbao; the opium of Shan State, the world's largest producer since 2023 by the UN with about 1,000 metric tons, and the methamphetamine of the labs |
| Rice and the land | The rice of the delta and the dry zone, the "rice bowl of Asia" of the colony that exported 3 million tons a year in the 1930s and a fraction now, about 2 million tons of exports in the good years; the beans and pulses to India, the largest export of the farms; the sesame, the maize and the rubber; the teak of the Bago Yoma, the exports banned in 2014 and smuggled since; the fishing of the delta and the Andaman; the fertilizer shortage of 2026 on the monsoon planting |
| Industry and the garments | The cut-make-pack garment factories of Yangon's zones for Europe and Japan, about 500,000 workers before the coup and the brands' departures since, H&M and Primark gone in 2023; the Thilawa special economic zone of Japan; the beer of Myanmar Beer of the army's conglomerate and the Kirin exit of 2022; the cement and the steel of the army's companies, the Myanmar Economic Holdings and the Myanmar Economic Corporation, the sanctioned pillars of the regime's money; the telecoms of Telenor sold in 2022 and the surveillance of the networks |
| The scam cities | The scam compounds of the Thai border at Shwe Kokko, KK Park and the Myawaddy zones, run by the Chinese syndicates and the Karen Border Guard Force, the trafficked workers of a hundred countries forced to defraud the world, the crackdown of February 2025 when Thailand cut the power and 7,000 were freed, the compounds rebuilt and moved; the casinos of Mong La and the Wa; the crime economy of the borders that the Crisis Group calls the war's transnational spillover |
| Public finances | The budget of the war — the defense the largest share, the revenue of the gas, the jade and the taxes of the collapsed trade, the printing of the kyat, the foreign reserves near exhaustion; the debt to China and Japan; the aid cut to a fraction and the humanitarian appeal of the UN funded a third; the earthquake's damage of US$11 billion by the World Bank's estimate; the remittances through the hundi; the NUG's "revolution bonds" and its taxes of the liberated townships |
| Income classification | Lower-middle income (World Bank); a least developed country |
Transport & infrastructure
| Main airports | Yangon International Airport at Mingaladon, the door of the country, about 2 million passengers in the war years from 6 million before the coup; Mandalay International, its terminal cracked by the earthquake; Naypyidaw International, the empty giant of 2011; Heho of Inle, Nyaung-U of Bagan, Sittwe, Myitkyina; the fuel shortage of 2026 that grounded the domestic flights |
|---|---|
| Airlines | Myanmar National Airlines, the state carrier of 1948; Myanmar Airways International of the regional routes; Air KBZ and the private airlines of the tycoons; the foreign carriers of Bangkok, Singapore and Kunming, the sanctions' gaps; the airspace of the airstrikes |
| Main ports | Yangon, the river port of the Ayeyarwady delta of the container ships, and Thilawa of the Japanese zone; Kyaukphyu, the Chinese deep-water port of the corridor to Yunnan, under the Arakan Army's siege; Sittwe, the Indian-built port of the Kaladan project, opened 2023 and cut off by the war; Dawei of the Thai plans unbuilt; Mawlamyine |
| Railways | About 5,400 km (3,350 mi) of meter gauge — Myanma Railways of the British lines of 1877, the Yangon–Mandalay main line of 620 km and the Yangon Circular Railway of the commuters, the Mandalay–Myitkyina and the Mandalay–Lashio of the war-cut north, the Gokteik viaduct of 1900; the lines cut by the fighting and the Chinese Muse–Mandalay railway of the corridor unbuilt; the Ava bridge of the earthquake |
| Roads | About 160,000 km (100,000 mi), about a fifth paved — the Yangon–Mandalay Expressway of 587 km of 2010, the "death highway" of its crashes, to Naypyidaw; the Asian Highway to Thailand through Myawaddy and Kawkareik, the road of the trade and the war, reopened 2 April 2026 by the regime's decree and "an active conflict zone" by the Karen's; the Mandalay–Muse road to China of the ceasefires; the Bagan–Chauk road; the driving on the right in the right-hand-drive cars; the motorbikes banned from Yangon since 2003 |
| The river | The Ayeyarwady the highway of the country — the ferries of Mandalay to Bagan and the cargo boats to Bhamo, the Inland Water Transport of the colony; the U Bein bridge of Amarapura, 1.2 km of teak of 1850, the longest teak bridge in the world; the leg-rowers of Inle |
History in dates
| c. 200 BC | The Pyu cities — Sri Ksetra, Halin, Beikthano |
|---|---|
| 849 | Bagan founded |
| 1044 | Anawrahta — the Pagan Empire; Theravada Buddhism, 1057 |
| 1287 | The Mongols take Bagan |
| 1550 | Bayinnaung — the largest empire of Southeast Asia, to 1581 |
| 1752 | Alaungpaya founds the Konbaung dynasty; Yangon, 1755 |
| 1824 | The First Anglo-Burmese War — Arakan and Tenasserim lost |
| 1852 | The Second — Lower Burma annexed |
| 1885 | The Third — Thibaw deposed at Mandalay, 29 November; Burma British, 1 January 1886 |
| 1937 | Separated from India, 1 April |
| 1942 | The Japanese conquest; Aung San's Burma Independence Army |
| 1945 | Aung San turns on the Japanese, 27 March |
| 1947 | Panglong, 12 February; Aung San assassinated, 19 July |
| 1948 | Independence, 4 January — U Nu; the Karen war begins, 1949 |
| 1962 | Ne Win's coup, 2 March — the Burmese Way to Socialism |
| 1974 | The socialist republic |
| 1988 | The uprising of 8 August; the SLORC, 18 September |
| 1989 | Myanmar, 18 June; Suu Kyi under house arrest, 20 July |
| 1990 | The election of 27 May — the NLD wins, the result ignored |
| 1991 | Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize |
| 2005 | Naypyidaw the capital, 6 November |
| 2007 | The Saffron Revolution, September |
| 2008 | Nargis, 2–3 May — 138,000 dead; the Constitution, 10 May |
| 2010 | The election, 7 November; Suu Kyi freed, 13 November |
| 2011 | Thein Sein's civilian government, 30 March |
| 2015 | The NLD wins, 8 November |
| 2016 | Suu Kyi State Counsellor, 6 April |
| 2017 | The Rohingya driven out, from 25 August |
| 2019 | The Gambia's genocide case, 11 November |
| 2020 | The NLD wins again, 8 November |
| 2021 | The coup, 1 February; the NUG, 16 April; the "defensive war," 7 September |
| 2022 | The executions, 25 July; the Security Council resolution, 21 December |
| 2023 | The NLD dissolved, 28 March; Operation 1027, 27 October |
| 2024 | Conscription, 10 February; Lashio falls, 3 August; the ICC request, 27 November |
| 2025 | The earthquake, 28 March; Lashio returned, 22 April; the SAC dissolved, 31 July; Xi and Min Aung Hlaing, 30 August; the vote begins, 28 December |
| 2026 | The phases, 11 and 25 January; Tagaung falls, 10 March; the parliament, 16–18 March; the yuan, 16 March; the command handed over, 30 March; president elected, 3 April; sworn, 10 April; Wang Yi, 25 April; the state of the union, 31 July |
Records & firsts
| The highest peak of Southeast Asia | Hkakabo Razi, 5,881 m |
|---|---|
| Seventy percent of the world's jade | Hpakant |
| The largest source of heavy rare earths | Pangwa, Kachin |
| The world's largest opium producer | Since 2023 |
| The largest tiger reserve | Hukaung, 21,000 km² |
| The longest teak bridge | U Bein, 1.2 km |
| The world's largest book | Kuthodaw, 729 marble pages |
| The deadliest cyclone of the country | Nargis, 138,000, 2008 |
| The largest refugee camp in the world | Cox's Bazar, 1.1 million Rohingya |
| The longest civil war | The Karen, since 1949 |
| An Asian secretary-general of the UN | U Thant, 1961 |
| A half-hour time zone | UTC+6:30 |
| A coup leader made president by his own parliament | 3 April 2026 |
| The empire of Bayinnaung | The largest of the region, 1550–81 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the official name of Myanmar?
The Republic of the Union of Myanmar — Pyidaunzu Thanmăda Myăma Nainngandaw in Burmese — the name given by the Constitution of 2008, the state that was the Union of Burma at its independence from Britain on 4 January 1948 and was renamed Myanmar by the military government on 18 June 1989, a change the democracy movement long refused and the United States still does not use. Myanma is the literary form of the name of the Bamar, the majority people, and Bama the spoken one; the two words mean the same and the choice between them became a politics of its own. The kings' realm was Burma to the British who conquered it in three wars between 1824 and 1885.
What is the capital of Myanmar?
Naypyidaw — "the abode of kings," the capital the generals built in secret in the scrub 320 km north of Yangon and moved to on 6 November 2005 at an astrologically chosen hour, a city of twenty-lane boulevards, the parliament complex of 31 buildings and the Uppatasanti pagoda, a copy of the Shwedagon a foot shorter, with about a million people mostly of the ministries; the earthquake of 28 March 2025 cracked its towers. Yangon, Rangoon of the British, the capital until 2005, is the largest city and the port with about 5.5 million, the Shwedagon its golden hill; Mandalay, the last royal capital of 1857, is the second with 1.5 million, the city the earthquake struck hardest.
How big is Myanmar, and how many people live there?
About 676,578 km² (261,228 sq mi) — a little smaller than Texas, the largest country of mainland Southeast Asia — between Bangladesh and India to the west, China to the north and east, and Laos and Thailand to the east, with 1,930 km of coast on the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea; the Ayeyarwady runs its length. The census of 2014 counted 51,486,253 people and the count of 2024, taken in the war and reaching only three-fifths of the townships, estimated 51.3 million; the UN puts the population at about 55 million in 2026, of whom about 3.5 million are displaced inside the country by the fighting since the coup and 1.1 million Rohingya are refugees across the border in Bangladesh; the Bamar are two-thirds and 134 other officially recognized peoples the rest.
What are the highest and lowest points of Myanmar?
Hkakabo Razi, 5,881 m (19,295 ft), in the far north of Kachin State where the Himalaya's eastern end meets the borders of India and China, the highest peak of Southeast Asia by the old survey, its snowfields the only ones of the region; and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The Ayeyarwady, the Irrawaddy of the British, flows 2,170 km from the Kachin confluence past Mandalay and Bagan to the delta of Yangon; the Salween cuts the Shan plateau in gorges; the Arakan Yoma walls off the Rakhine coast, and the central dry zone of the Bamar lies between the ranges.
What currency does Myanmar use?
The kyat (ISO code MMK, K), of 100 pyas, issued since 1 July 1952 by the Union Bank and now by the Central Bank of Myanmar — a currency that has lost most of its value since the coup, the official reference rate held near 2,100 to the U.S. dollar while the market rate has run above 4,000, and the yuan admitted as a currency of foreign investment on 16 March 2026 as the country turned to China. Clocks keep Myanmar Time, UTC+6:30, one of the few half-hour zones; the country drives on the right since 1970, in cars mostly built for the left.
Who governs Myanmar?
Min Aung Hlaing, the general who seized power in the coup of 1 February 2021 and ruled as chairman of the junta and commander-in-chief for five years, is president of the republic since 10 April 2026, elected by a parliament that his military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party dominates after the elections of December 2025 and January 2026 — polls held under martial law with the National League for Democracy dissolved, Aung San Suu Kyi in prison and a third of the townships unable to vote, "a sham" to the United Nations, the European Union and Britain, "the path to a federal democratic union" to the regime. His confidants hold the vice presidencies, the speakerships and the command of the armed forces; the National Unity Government of the ousted lawmakers, the people's defense forces and the ethnic armies hold much of the countryside and the borderlands in a civil war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced 3.5 million. No opposition is permitted; the next election is due in 2030.
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