🇲🇲 Burma

Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu migrants from present-day Yunnan established the earliest known city-states in central Myanmar. Their trade with India brought Buddhism and architectural and political concepts that shaped later Burmese culture.

Sustained raids from Nanzhao upset the balance among the Pyu city-states of the central dry zone. Their decline opened the way for Bamar settlement and the rise of Bagan.

In the mid-to-late 9th century the Bamar founded a small settlement at Bagan amid competing Pyu, Mon and Arakanese city-states. Their arrival laid the demographic and linguistic foundation of the later Burmese state.

Various ethnic Burmese and ethnic minority city-states and kingdoms, beginning with the Pagan dynasty of the 11th century, occupied the area of present-day Burma through the 19th century.

Pagan absorbed surrounding states to achieve the first unification of the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery. The kingdom made Burmese language, culture and Theravada Buddhism dominant and became one of mainland Southeast Asia's two great powers alongside the Khmer Empire.

Repeated Mongol invasions in the late 13th century brought down the four-century-old kingdom. Its collapse was followed by 250 years of political fragmentation lasting into the 16th century.

After long fragmentation under competing neighbours, Mrauk U brought the Arakan coast under a single authority. The kingdom was at times a protectorate of the Bengal Sultanate and became a regional power for some 350 years.

Ava's repeated wars of unification in the 14th and 15th centuries failed to reassemble the Pagan empire and left it exhausted. From 1481 it slowly fell apart, ceding the initiative to Hanthawaddy and the Shan.

Taungoo, a former vassal of Ava, overcame the more powerful Hanthawaddy kingdom and restored political unification in the mid-16th century. This laid the base for Bayinnaung's subsequent imperial expansion.

Bayinnaung conquered the Shan states, Lan Na, Manipur, Mong Mao, Ayutthaya, Lan Xang and southern Arakan. The empire unravelled after his death in 1581 and collapsed by 1599, with Ayutthaya seizing Tenasserim and Lan Na and the Portuguese establishing rule at Thanlyin.

The Shan confederation took Ava and governed Upper Myanmar until 1555. Their dominance ended only with the Taungoo reunification of the mid-16th century.

The crown ended hereditary rule across the Irrawaddy valley and curtailed Shan chiefs' hereditary rights. Together with trade and secular administrative reforms this underpinned a prosperous economy for more than 80 years.

The regrouped dynasty expelled the Portuguese in 1613 and beat Siam in 1614, restoring a smaller and more manageable kingdom covering Lower and Upper Myanmar, the Shan states, Lan Na and upper Tenasserim. Restored Toungoo kings then built a legal and administrative framework that endured into the 19th century.

Amid Meithei raids and rebellion in Lan Na, the Mon established a rival kingdom in Lower Myanmar. Its forces sacked Ava in 1752, ending the 266-year-old Toungoo dynasty.

After the fall of Ava, Alaungpaya's resistance defeated the Restored Hanthawaddy and drove out the French and British who had armed it. By 1770 his heirs had subdued much of Laos and won wars against Ayutthaya and Qing China.

Blocked in the east by China and a resurgent Ayutthaya, Bodawpaya expanded westwards, taking Arakan in 1785, Manipur in 1814 and Assam in 1817. This created the second-largest empire in Burmese history but also a long, ill-defined border with British India.

Between 1824 and 1885 Britain fought three wars against the Konbaung dynasty, annexing Burmese territory in stages. The final campaign exiled King Thibaw and brought all of Burma under British colonial administration as a province of India.

Defeat by the British stripped Burma of its western acquisitions and Tenasserim. It marked the beginning of a 60-year process of British encroachment on the kingdom.

British forces easily took Lower Burma, cutting the kingdom off from the sea and its richest delta lands. The remaining Konbaung state was left dependent and vulnerable.

Crude oil exports commenced under British administration in Lower Burma. It marked the colony's integration into global commodity markets.

Mindon Min pursued modernisation of the kingdom and bought time by surrendering the Karenni States. His reforms proved uneven and insufficient to halt British colonial advance.

Alarmed by the consolidation of French Indochina, Britain took the rest of the country and Mandalay fell. Burma was formally annexed on 1 January 1886, ending Burmese monarchy and independence.

Free-market colonial policy drew Indian soldiers, civil servants, workers and traders, who with the Anglo-Burmese dominated commercial and civil life. Rangoon exceeded New York City as the world's greatest immigration port in the 1920s, fuelling Burmese resentment and periodic riots.

Myitta Ne Thuya (Love and Liquor) proved a major success despite poor quality, following an earlier documentary of the funeral of the politician Tun Shein. The first Burmese sound film followed in 1932, made in Bombay.

Administered as a province of British India since the colonial conquest, Burma was detached from India in April 1937 and given its own self-governing colonial administration, with Ba Maw becoming the first Prime Minister and Premier. It gave Burmese politicians their first substantial experience of self-government.

Before Japan formally entered the war, Aung San raised an armed force abroad to fight for independence. The BIA became the nucleus of Burma's later national army and of Aung San's political authority.

Within months of Japan entering the war, its forces advanced on Rangoon and British rule broke down. A Burmese Executive Administration headed by Ba Maw was installed by the Japanese in August 1942.

Offensives from late 1944 culminated in the end of Japanese rule in July 1945, after fighting that laid much of the country waste. Japan lost around 150,000 men, and between 170,000 and 250,000 Burmese civilians died during the war.

The agreement guaranteed independence for Burma as a unified state combining Burma Proper with the separately administered Frontier Areas. It defined the territorial shape of the modern country and the terms of its ethnic settlement.

Months after becoming Deputy Chairman of the transitional Executive Council, Aung San was killed with much of his cabinet. His death removed the one leader with authority across Bamar and ethnic minority communities on the eve of independence.

Armed struggles for ethnic and sub-national autonomy began with independence and have persisted in the areas surrounding the Bamar central districts. They have shaped state capacity, militarisation and internal access ever since.

After the parliamentary government was formed, U Nu declared the state owner of all land in Burma. This set the direction for decades of state-controlled economic policy.

The Union of Burma became independent from Britain on 4 January 1948 under the Burma Independence Act 1947, with Sao Shwe Thaik as first president and U Nu as first prime minister, and unusually chose not to join the Commonwealth. A bicameral Union Parliament was created and multi-party elections followed in 1951–52, 1956 and 1960. Ethnic minority leaders had agreed to join the new union months earlier under the Panglong Agreement, with a right to secede after 10 years.

From 1958 onwards the once-influential Anglo-Burmese emigrated principally to Australia and the United Kingdom. Around 52,000 are estimated to remain in Myanmar.

Burma's Permanent Representative to the UN and former secretary to the prime minister took the world body's top post, holding it for ten years. It was the high point of Burmese international standing.

Business, media and production were nationalised or brought under state control, combining Soviet-style nationalisation with central planning. Agriculture was largely excluded, but the programme left Myanmar one of the world's poorest countries.

Persecution of Burmese Indians, Burmese Chinese and other groups after Ne Win's coup led some 300,000 people to leave. Wholesale nationalisation of private enterprise in 1964 accelerated the exodus and stripped the country of commercial expertise.

Ne Win's army ousted the civilian government of Prime Minister U Nu on 2 March 1962, ending parliamentary rule amid ethnic demands for federalism and a weak civilian centre. The new Revolutionary Council ruled until 1974 and pursued the Burmese Way to Socialism, nationalising banks, industry and trade over the following years; direct or indirect military control of the country has persisted ever since.

Security forces suppressed student protests shortly after the coup. It set the pattern of violent repression of dissent that recurred through the Ne Win years.

Collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute raised national rice production to 14 million tons by 1987 and 19 million by 1996. By 1988 modern varieties covered half the country's rice land and 98 per cent of irrigated areas.

The Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma was constituted in 1974, with Ne Win and other officers resigning commissions to rule through the Burma Socialist Programme Party. The one-party system lasted until 1988.

Around 200,000 people crossed into Bangladesh following the operation in Arakan. A further 250,000 left in 1991, entrenching a long-running refugee crisis.

From 1982 the Rohingya were excluded from citizenship and subjected to severe persecution. This legal exclusion underlies decades of displacement and the later genocide.

In 1987 the government invalidated most high-value banknotes without compensation, wiping out many families' savings after two decades of economic mismanagement under the Burmese Way to Socialism. The move helped precipitate the following year's uprising.

The government applied for LDC designation to obtain relief on its debts. It marked formal acknowledgement of the collapse of the socialist economic model.

Unrest over economic mismanagement and political oppression produced nationwide pro-democracy demonstrations that peaked on 8 August 1988, before the army under General Saw Maung seized power on 18 September as the State Law and Order Restoration Council. The authorities put the death toll at around 350; other estimates run into the thousands.

Instead of ceding power, the regime placed NLD leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest from 1989 to 1995, 2000 to 2002 and from May 2003 to November 2010.

The detained former leader held her first known meeting with a foreign representative in years on 3 August 2026, amid mounting concern about her health. Her son said she appeared to be in good health, though no independent medical assessment was made public.

Myanmar's president travelled to Thailand as Bangkok pushed fellow ASEAN members to re-engage with Naypyidaw following the 2025–26 election. Other member states have withheld recognition of the vote, leaving Myanmar's regional standing unresolved.

The bank projected Myanmar's inflation at 24 per cent for 2026, easing from previous years but still elevated, and growth of just 2.4 per cent. It said the kyat had strengthened on tighter foreign-exchange controls, though conflict and import costs kept weighing on the economy.

Parliament elected the military chief president on 3 April 2026 and he took the oath of office a week later, dissolving the transitional State Security and Peace Commission. Nyo Saw and Nan Ni Ni Aye were elected as vice presidents.

A Tatmadaw air strike hit a prison holding Arakan Army prisoners of war in Ann Township, Rakhine State, on 8 March 2026, killing around 116 people. The strike came as the military pressed offensives against resistance-held towns elsewhere in the country that month.

One year after the magnitude-7.7 earthquake, which killed more than 3,600 people according to official figures, many families in central Myanmar still lacked permanent housing, and schools and clinics remained unrepaired. Aid agencies said conflict, flooding and reduced international funding were slowing reconstruction.

The two countries signed a five-year military cooperation agreement on 3 February 2026 during a visit by senior Russian officials, extending defence ties between the two governments. Myanmar's armed forces have relied heavily on Russian and Chinese-made weapons and aircraft since the 2021 coup.

Myanmar expelled Timor-Leste's chargé d'affaires, Elisio do Rosario de Sousa, after Dili opened a criminal complaint accusing Min Aung Hlaing of war crimes and crimes against humanity under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Voting was held on 28 December 2025 and 11 and 25 January 2026, the first election since the 2021 coup. The military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party won most seats; the National League for Democracy did not take part, and turnout figures were disputed.

SpaceX cut off satellite terminals it said were linked to cyber-scam compounds, but the shutdowns also severed communications for civilians and resistance fighters in areas where the junta had cut mobile internet. Rights groups said the disruption hampered aid delivery and reporting from conflict zones.

Reuters reported ASEAN telling Myanmar's military government to begin dialogue, end hostilities immediately and permit unhindered humanitarian access. The demand marked continued regional pressure over the civil war.

The formerly governing party was outlawed by the military authorities. Its dissolution removed the principal organised civilian political force from legal politics.

The NUG declared an armed wing on 5 May 2021, a date often cited as the start of full-scale civil war. It was presented as a first step towards a Federal Union Army and remains at war with the junta.

By 15 March 2021 the military had extended martial law across more of Yangon while suppressing mass demonstrations. Nationwide protests involving civil servants, teachers, students, workers and monks had largely halted commerce and transport.

On 1 February 2021, hours before a new parliament was due to convene, the military detained President Win Myint, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and other ruling party figures, handed power to Min Aung Hlaing and declared a year-long state of emergency, closing borders, restricting travel and communications and expelling NLD MPs from Naypyidaw. The takeover triggered mass civil disobedience and a nationwide armed uprising that continues today.

The military junta governed under emergency rule for four years before handing authority back to the National Defence and Security Council. The country then transitioned to a nominally civilian government in 2026.

Washington threatened to freeze one billion dollars of military assets while the UN Security Council called for the release of detained leaders. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and China refrained from criticising the coup.

The military-affiliated USDP took only 33 of 476 elected seats, a defeat worse than 2015. The USDP and the military rejected the outcome and alleged fraud despite the election commission and observers validating the result.

Operations in Shan State in April and May 2020 netted 193 million methamphetamine tablets, crystal methamphetamine, heroin and vast quantities of precursors and equipment. The scale illustrated the country's central role in the regional synthetic drug trade.

Following attacks on police posts by Rohingya militants, the Tatmadaw launched clearance operations in Rakhine State from August 2017 that killed an estimated 23,000 to 43,700 Rohingya and drove more than 700,000 — about 730,000 — into Bangladesh. UN investigators later said the campaign was carried out with genocidal intent, which Myanmar's government has denied, and the persecution became the principal source of international tension over Myanmar's conduct.

Barred from the presidency, she took a post akin to prime minister created for her by the NLD parliament. It formalised her leadership of the civilian government alongside President Htin Kyaw.

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won an absolute majority in both chambers in the November 2015 election, the first openly contested poll since the annulled 1990 vote and the first whose result the military honoured. Constitutionally barred from the presidency, Suu Kyi became State Counsellor when the new government took office, while Htin Kyaw was elected on 15 March 2016 as the first non-military president since 1962.

Armed conflict displaced 40,000 to 50,000 civilians, many sheltering across the Chinese border. China was accused of aiding the rebels, straining relations between the two states.

The country set up its first stock exchange as part of economic opening. It provided the first formal domestic capital market institution.

Provisional results put the population at 51,419,420, including an estimated 1,206,353 uncounted people in parts of Rakhine, Kachin and Kayin States. The census also recorded 87.9 per cent Buddhists, 6.2 per cent Christians and 4.3 per cent Muslims.

Burma chaired the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for 2014, a sign of its diplomatic rehabilitation, while most political parties began building their institutions ahead of general elections due in 2015.

The country's first ever international summit was held on 5–7 June with 1,200 participants including ten heads of state. It signalled Myanmar's return to international economic engagement.

On 20 August 2012 the authorities announced they would stop censoring media before publication, with liberalisation reforms reported enacted by April 2013. Internet surveillance of e-mails and blogs also ceased.

The government abolished the laws barring the NLD and allowed it to contest parliamentary by-elections on 1 April 2012, in which the party won 43 of the 45 available seats and Aung San Suu Kyi took a seat, later serving as chair of the Committee for Rule of Law and Tranquility. It was also the first time international observers were permitted to monitor voting in Myanmar.

Western powers relaxed economic restrictions in response to the political reforms, with the US lifting measures between May 2012 and February 2013. Foreign investment flowed in chiefly from China, Singapore, the Philippines, South Korea, India and Thailand.

The US Secretary of State met President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi in response to the reforms. Washington had relaxed foreign aid curbs in November 2011 and announced resumption of diplomatic relations on 13 January 2012.

The new parliament convened in January 2011 and chose former Prime Minister Thein Sein as president. The vast majority of his national-level appointees were former or current military officers.

The nominally civilian government of Thein Sein released Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, amnestied over 200 political prisoners and released hundreds more, created a National Human Rights Commission, legalised unions and strikes, relaxed press censorship and unblocked banned websites including YouTube and Voice of America in September 2011, regulated currency practices, enacted laws providing better protections for basic human rights and reached preliminary peace agreements with 10 of the 11 major armed ethnic groups, substantially opening the long-isolated country.

Parliamentary elections in November 2010, the first in twenty years, were boycotted by the NLD and considered flawed by many in the international community amid fraud allegations; the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party took over 75 per cent of the seats. Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest days later, a nominally civilian government under retired general Thein Sein was formed and the junta dissolved itself in March 2011.

Fighting broke out against Han Chinese, Wa and Kachin forces in northern Myanmar. In the first days as many as 10,000 civilians fled across the border into Yunnan.

A flawed national referendum approved an army-drafted constitution providing for an elected assembly that appoints a president. It reserved a quarter of parliamentary seats for the armed forces, ensuring military control at all levels.

Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy Delta on 2 May 2008 in the worst natural disaster in Myanmar's recorded history, killing more than 138,000 people, with estimates of dead and missing running to 200,000, causing some 10 billion dollars of damage and leaving up to a million homeless. The isolationist junta initially restricted foreign aid workers' access, was accused of obstructing UN recovery efforts and delaying foreign relief flights, and pressed ahead with a constitutional referendum days later.

Monk-led protests against a sharp rise in fuel prices spread across Myanmar in August and September 2007 before the military dispersed them with lethal force, with a crackdown on 26 September involving barricades at the Shwedagon Pagoda and monks killed. The United Nations put the confirmed death toll at around 30, though rights groups said it was likely higher, and international condemnation led to increased economic sanctions against the government.

The government relocated the national capital from Yangon to a site near Pyinmana in November 2005, officially naming it Naypyidaw on 27 March 2006. The move placed the seat of government in a defensible inland location away from the largest city.

Membership ended some of the country's regional isolation under military rule. Myanmar gave up its turn to chair in 2006 but chaired the forum and hosted the summit in 2014.

Heavy logging after the 1995 forestry law took effect sharply reduced forest area and wildlife habitat. Myanmar has since ranked poorly on international environmental performance measures.

The junta set out a staged path towards a controlled form of democracy. The process stalled repeatedly until a draft constitution appeared in 2008.

Myanmar became a signatory of the NPT, having been an IAEA member since 1957. Assessments in 2019 found no violation of obligations but a history of non-transparency about its nuclear programme.

Than Shwe succeeded Saw Maung as effectively Myanmar's top ruler. He held the position until the junta's dissolution in 2011.

Aung San Suu Kyi's party took 80 per cent of seats in the first free elections in almost 30 years. The military junta refused to cede power, ruling as SLORC and from 1997 as the State Peace and Development Council.

The junta imposed martial law after widespread protests and planned People's Assembly elections for 31 May 1989. On 18 June 1989 it changed the official English name to the Union of Myanmar and romanised place names to their Burmese forms.