Myanmar (Burma)

From the Buddhist city-states of the Irrawaddy and the temple-strewn plain of Bagan to a modern nation forged by empire, war, and a long contest between army and democracy.

Myanmar's recorded history begins with the Pyu city-states of the Irrawaddy basin, where Buddhism gained its first lasting foothold in Southeast Asia, and rises to the kingdom of Pagan (Bagan), whose king Anawrahta made Theravada Buddhism the foundation of Burmese civilization. The Toungoo and Konbaung dynasties built the largest Burmese empires before the Konbaung kings lost three Anglo-Burmese Wars, ending in the British annexation of the whole country in 1885 and its rule first as a province of British India and, from 1937, as a separate colony. After Japanese occupation in the Second World War and the rise of the nationalist Aung San, Burma won independence on 4 January 1948. General Ne Win's 1962 coup opened decades of military rule punctuated by the 1988 uprising and the long pro-democracy struggle of Aung San Suu Kyi; a fragile opening after 2011 was reversed by the military's coup of 1 February 2021, and the country remains gripped by conflict in 2026.