THE LAND

               The lush and picturesque land of Myanmar runs some 2090 km (1300 miles),

north and south, from the lofty mountains of Tibet to the rolling tropical waters of the Indian Ocean. Breadth ice, it draws out 925 km (575 miles) from the Naff river on the Bangladesh border to the Mekong river that separates Myanmar from Laos.
                   A horseshoe of hill -- offshoots of the Tibetan Himalayas -- froms strong natural frontiers with Bangladesh and India in the west, with China in the north and northeast, and with Laos and Thailand in the east and southeast.
                   Snowcapped Hakaborazi, Myanmar's highest peak, towers in the extreme north, 5581 metres above sea levels.
                   Three mountain systems -- the Western or Rakhine Yoma, the Bago Yoma and the Shan Plateau -- divide three parallel river valleys, the Ayeyarwady, the Sittaung and the Thanlwin.
                   The Ayeyarwady valley constitutes Myanmar proper. With its source in the wodded Kachin heights in the tenperature north, the river enters the dry belt just above the old capital of mandalay and manders on its way southwards to from below Hindatha the vast flatnass of its delta, the granary of Myanmar. On the delta's eastern flank and ta the southern extremity of the forested Bago Yoma stands Yangon, the modern capital and chief port of the country.

                   The total area of Myanmar covers 676,577 sq. km (261, 789 sq. miles), about the size of Great Britain and France combined together.
                   Through the country's long coastline of more than 2832 km (1760 miles) came first foreign culture and civilization, and then the uninvited foreign domination that stayed for 124 years (1824-1948) in lower Myanmar and 62 years (1866-1948) in the whole country.
                    Officially our country is Myanmar Naing-Ngan. Known since our history bagan. But the British had called it Burma. There is also another name__ The Golden Land (Thuwunna Bumi in Pali), given by ancient travelers from India and the West, may be appreciating the land's wealth in agriculture and minerals.

The Myanmar chronicles begin with the founding of Tagaung in the upper reaches of the Ayeyarwady in 850 BC., and the existence of some small kingdoms inhabited by ancient natives, namely Pyus, Kanyans and Theks, in central Myanmar. But this earlyy history of ours associated with fabulous traditions and folklore is deemed as 'obscure' by noted historians.                The indegenous races of Myanmar are of Mongoloid stock, from which derive three main branches-the Tibeto-Myanmar, the Mon-Khmer, and the Tai-Chinese. The migration of Myanmar to his sunny southern land followed an earlier group, the Mons, who first blazed the trail, settled near the sea and achieved a higher degree of culture. The Tais provided the last of the grate migrations, coming from Yunnan in the 13th century.                Since the beginning of the Christians area, the Myanmar proper had settled and prospered in central Myanmar along the Ayeyarwady valley with small states such as Thayakkhittaya, Beikthano, Hanlin, etc.

There were also comtemporary states in the land of Rakhines, Mons and Shans. But the eleventh century saw the whole group of independent Myanmar states welded into one strong kingdom for the first time by King Anawratha (1044-1077 AD) who had his capital at Bagan. It is said he extented his control over the whole country and beyond, even to Sri Lanka and Cambodia. Anawratha started the dynasty of temple builders and they made Bagan famous for its legendary four-million pagodas.                                           Two other great kings-Bayintnaung of Bago (1550-81) and Alaungpaya of Shwebo (1752-60) also succeeded in unifying the country. It was King Alaungpaya who founded Yangon in 1755 AD.                                          The hill areas of Myanmar presented difficult terrain with poor communications, splitting the main races into numerous groups with distinctive dialects. Thus as many as 135 clans of Myanmar nationals live in the Kachin, Kayah, Kayin, Chin, Shan and Rakhine states. Owing to somewhat better communications,population is highly concentrated in the delta and the central plains.                                         By religion, Myanmar nationals are predominnantly Buddhist, but are quite tolerant to other beliefs. By temperament, we are all simple, loving and happy people.                                          Colonial rule that entered everywhere in the world in the eighteenth century gave rise to racial rivalries and communal distruct among people of a country. Myanmar under British fared no better. But since our Independence (4th January, 1948), national consciousness and unity has been carefully culivated. Now the entire 46 million people of our Union, especially in this new era under the State Law and Order Restoration Council, are making a united effort towards building a new modern developed nation.