Myanmar

Where the name comes from

Myanmar and Burma both come from Burmese Mranma, the Bamar people’s older name: Myanmar is the literary form, Burma the spoken one.

First people

Bamar kingdoms and Shan, Karen, Rakhine and other societies grew here, and Bagan became a royal capital in the 800s.^1,2

Known for

Myanmar is known for the thousands of temples on the plain of Bagan and for the gold-covered Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon.³

Outside contact

British conquests came in 1826, 1852 and 1885, Britain annexed the whole country in 1886, and Japan occupied it in 1942–1945.¹

The modern country

Myanmar became independent from Britain as Burma in 1948. A military coup in 1962 began a long era of army rule, and another in 2021 ended a later period of elected government.⁴