Administrative Divisions Of Myanmar
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Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
is divided into twenty-one administrative subdivisions, which include 7 regions, 7 states, 1 union territory, 1 self-administered division, and 5 self-administered zones. Following is the table of government subdivisions and its organizational structure based on different regions, states, the union territory, the self-administered division, and the self-administered zones: The regions were called divisions prior to August 2010, and four of them are named after their capital city, the exceptions being
Sagaing Region Sagaing Region ( my, စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Sagaing Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and lon ...
, Ayeyarwady Region and
Tanintharyi Region Tanintharyi Region ( my, တနင်္သာရီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; Mon: or ; ms, Tanah Sari; formerly Tenasserim Division and subsequently Tanintharyi Division, th, ตะนาวศรี, RTGS: ''Tanao Si'', ; ...
. The regions can be described as ethnically predominantly Burman (Bamar), while the states, the zones and Wa Division are dominated by ethnic minorities.
Yangon Region Yangon Region(, ; formerly Rangoon Division and Yangon Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar. Located in the heart of Lower Myanmar, the division is bordered by Bago Region to the north and east, the Gulf of Martaban to the south, ...
has the largest population and is the most densely populated. The smallest population is
Kayah State Kayah State ( my, ကယားပြည်နယ်, formerly Karenni State) is a state of Myanmar. Situated in eastern Myanmar, it is bounded on the north by Shan State, on the east by Thailand's Mae Hong Son Province, and on the south and we ...
. In terms of land area,
Shan State Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the Endonym and exonym, endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. ...
is the largest and
Naypyidaw Union Territory The Naypyitaw Union Territory ( my, ပြည်‌ထောင်စုနယ်မြေ နေပြည်တော်), also called Naypyitaw Council Territory () (Naypyitaw also spelled Nay Pyi Taw, Naypyidaw or Nay Pyi Daw) is an administr ...
is the smallest. Regions and states are divided into districts (; ''kha yaing'' or ''khayaing'', ). These districts consist of
townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...
(; ''myo-ne'', ) that include towns (; ''myo'', ), wards (; ''yatkwet'', )) and
village tract A village tract ( my, ကျေးရွာအုပ်စု; also spelt village-tract), also called overvillage, is a fourth-level administrative subdivision of Myanmar's rural townships. As of August 2015, there are 13,602 village tracts in Mya ...
s (; ''kyayywa oksu'', ). Village tracts are groups of adjacent
villages A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...
(; ''kyayywa'', ).


Structural hierarchy

*Some townships are divided into Subtownships (), which are semi-official parts of a township administered separately. Many reports will use subtownships, especially more established subtownships used by the main townships themselves.


Administrative divisions


Regions, States, and Union Territory


Self-Administered Division and Self-Administered Zones


System of administration

The administrative structure of the states, regions and self-administering bodies is outlined in the new constitution adopted in 2008.


Regions and States

Executive authority is held in each state or region by a Regional or State Government consisting of a Chief Minister, other ministers and an Advocate General. The
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
appoints the Chief Minister from a list of qualified candidates in the regional or state legislature; the regional or state legislature must approve the President's choice unless they can prove that he or she does not meet the constitutional qualifications. Legislative authority resides with the
State Hluttaw Myanmar ( also known as ''Burma'') is divided into twenty-one administrative subdivisions, which include seven states (; ''pyi ne'', ), seven regions (; ''taing detha gyi'', ), five self-administered zones and one self-administered division ( Wa ...
or Regional Hluttaw made up of elected civilian members and representatives of the Armed Forces. Both divisions are considered equivalent, the only distinction being that states have large ethnic minority populations and regions are mostly populated by the national majority Burmans / Bamar.


Naypyidaw Union Territory

The constitution states that Naypyidaw shall be a Union Territory under the direct administration of the
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
. Day-to-day functions would be carried out on the President's behalf by the Naypyidaw Council led by a Chairperson. The Chairperson and members of the Naypyidaw Council are appointed by the President and shall include civilians and representatives of the Armed Forces.


Self-Administered Division and Self-Administered Zones

Self-Administered Zones and Self-Administered Divisions are administered by a Leading Body. The Leading Body consists of at least ten members and includes State or Regional Hluttaw members elected from the Zones or Divisions and other members nominated by the Armed Forces. The Leading Body has both executive and legislative powers. A Chairperson is head of each Leading Body. Within
Sagaing Region Sagaing Region ( my, စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Sagaing Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and lon ...
: *
Naga Naga or NAGA may refer to: Mythology * Nāga, a serpentine deity or race in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions * Naga Kingdom, in the epic ''Mahabharata'' * Phaya Naga, mythical creatures believed to live in the Laotian stretch of the Mekong Riv ...
(Leshi, Lahe, and Namyun townships) Within
Shan State Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the Endonym and exonym, endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. ...
: *
Danu Self-Administered Zone The Danu Self-Administered Zone ( my, ဓနု ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရ ဒေသ ), as stipulated by the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, is a self-administered zone consisting of two townships in ...
(Ywangan and Pindaya townships), *
Kokang Self-Administered Zone The Kokang Self-Administered Zone ( my, ကိုးကန့် ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရ ဒေသ ), as stipulated by the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, is a self-administered zone in norther ...
(Konkyan and Laukkai townships) *
Pa Laung Self-Administered Zone The Palaung Self-Administered Zone ( my, ပလောင် ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရ ဒေသ ) is a self-administered zone consisting of two townships in Shan State: It was created as a separate ...
(Namshan and Manton townships) *
Pa'O Self-Administered Zone The Pa'O Self-Administered Zone ( my, ပအိုဝ်းကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရဒေသ ), as stipulated by the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, is a self-administered zone consisting of three ...
(Hopong, Hshihseng, and Pinlaung townships), *
Wa Self-Administered Division The Wa Self-Administered Division ( my, ဝ ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရ တိုင်း ) is an autonomous self-administered division in Myanmar (Burma). Its official name was announced by decre ...
(Hopang, Mongmao, Panwai, Pangsang, Naphan, and Metman townships)


Districts and Townships

Districts are the second-order divisions of Myanmar and are often named after a population center within the district of the same name. Shan State has the most districts, even excluding Self-Administered Zones and Divisions. Naypyidaw Union Territory and Mon State have the least with just 2 districts. The District's role is more supervisory as the 330
townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...
are the basic administrative unit of local governance and are the only type of administrative division that covers the entirety of Myanmar. A District is led by a District Administrator and a Township is administered by a Township Administrator. Both are appointed civil servants through the
General Administration Department The General Administration Department ( my, အထွေထွေအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးဦးစီးဌာန, abbreviated GAD) is a civil service body that staffs all regional and state-level governments in Myanmar and provides ad ...
(GAD) of the
Ministry of Home Affairs An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...
(MOHA). The Minister of Home Affairs is to be appointed by the military according to the 2008 constitution. Most local governance services are offered at the Township level; few services are offered at the District level. The Township Administrator is the key focal point for most interactions with the government and the Township Administrator serves as a representative of the State or Region government and executes functions on behalf of the State or Region. All Township governments are staffed by 34 GAD civil servants regardless of population, although larger townships may have several Township committees that coordinate with the Township and report to the District. Subtownships exist for many but not all townships. They can be created for many reasons including, townships with large areas, townships with a large natural barrier or townships with a lopsided population distribution. These subtownships are unofficial, but can be used by the Township administration and national ministries for data collection and administrative ease.


Wards, Village Tracts and Municipalities

The fourth and lowest level of administration is the
ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...
for urban areas and
village tract A village tract ( my, ကျေးရွာအုပ်စု; also spelt village-tract), also called overvillage, is a fourth-level administrative subdivision of Myanmar's rural townships. As of August 2015, there are 13,602 village tracts in Mya ...
for rural areas. Some townships include areas not part of any ward or village tract. Village Tracts may contain up to 8 distinct villages. Most townships contain at least one ward/town, and are usually named after the population center. As of reforms in 2012 and 2013, Ward and Village Tract administrators are now typically elected, but report to the appointed Township Administrator. Ward Administrators and Village Tract Administrators (also called just Village Administrators) are supported by 100-household-heads and 10-household-heads who are collectively called area leaders. Most cities in Myanmar are contained within one township like Pathein. In some cases, the rural portions of the township may be administered semi-independently as sub-townships. In larger cities, like Mandalay, the municipality may be functionally administered at a district level with townships acting `de facto` as subdivisions of a city. In
Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...
, the administrative jurisdiction of the
Yangon City Development Committee Yangon City Development Committee ( my, ရန်ကုန်မြို့တော် စည်ပင်သာယာရေး ကော်မတီ, abbreviated YCDC) is the administrative body of Yangon, the largest city and former capital of M ...
overlap across 33 townships and all 4 of Yangon Region's districts.


History


British colonisation

In 1900, Burma was a province of
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
, and was divided into two subdivisions: Lower Burma, whose capital was Rangoon with four divisions (Arakan, Irrawaddy, Pegu, Tenasserim), and
Upper Burma Upper Myanmar ( my, အထက်မြန်မာပြည်, also called Upper Burma) is a geographic region of Myanmar, traditionally encompassing Mandalay and its periphery (modern Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway Regions), or more broadly speak ...
, whose capital was Mandalay with six divisions (
Meiktila Meiktila (; ) is a city in central Burma on the banks of Meiktila Lake in the Mandalay Region at the junctions of the Bagan-Taunggyi, Yangon-Mandalay and Meiktila-Myingyan highways. Because of its strategic position, Meiktila is home to Myanmar Ai ...
, Minbu, Sagaing, North Federated Shan States and South Federated Shan States). On 10 October 1922, the Karenni States of Bawlake, Kantarawaddy, and Kyebogyi became a part of the Federated Shan States. In 1940, Minbu division's name was changed to Magwe, and Meiktila Divisions became part of Mandalay District.


Post-independence

Upon independence, on 4 January 1948, the Chin Hills area was split from Arakan Division to form Chin Special Division, and Kachin State was formed by carving out the Myitkyina and Bhamo districts of Mandalay Division. Karen State was also created from Amherst, Thaton, and Toungoo Districts of Tenasserim Division. Karenni State was separated from the Federated Shan States, and Shan State was formed by merging the Federated Shan States and the Wa States. In 1952, Karenni State was renamed Kayah State. In 1964, Rangoon Division was separated from Pegu Division, whose capital shifted to Pegu. In addition, Karen State was renamed Kawthule State. In 1972, the Hanthawaddy and Hmawbi districts were moved under Rangoon Division's juridstiction. In 1974, after
Ne Win Ne Win ( my, နေဝင်း ; 10 July 1910, or 14 or 24 May 1911 – 5 December 2002) was a Burmese politician and military commander who served as Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma ...
introduced a constitution, Chin Special Division became a state, and its capital moved from
Falam Falam (, ) is a town in north-western Burma (Myanmar) near Burma's western border with the Indian state of Mizoram. The town was founded by Taisun tribe. The British arrived to Falam in 1892, and became an important base for British rule of the ...
to Hakha. Kawthule State's name was reverted to Karen State. Mon State was created out of portions of Tenasserim Division and Pegu Division. Mon State's capital became
Moulmein Mawlamyine (also spelled Mawlamyaing; , ; th, เมาะลำเลิง ; mnw, မတ်မလီု, ), formerly Moulmein, is the fourth-largest city in Myanmar (Burma), ''World Gazetteer'' south east of Yangon and south of Thaton, at th ...
, and Tenasserim Division's became
Tavoy Dawei (, ; mnw, ဓဝဲါ, ; th, ทวาย, RTGS: ''Thawai'', ; formerly known as Tavoy) is a city in south-eastern Myanmar and is the capital of the Tanintharyi Region, formerly known as the Tenasserim Division, on the northern bank of ...
. In addition, Rakhine Division was granted statehood. In 1989, after the
coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
by the
military junta A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...
, the names of many divisions in Burma were altered in English to reflect Burmese pronunciations. After 1995, in Kachin State
Mohnyin District Mohnyin District ( my, မိုးညှင်းခရိုင်) is a district of the Kachin State in northern Burma (Myanmar). The administrative center is Mohnyin. Townships The district contains the following three townships: *Mongyaun ...
was created out of
Myitkyina District Myitkyina District ( my, မြစ်ကြီးနားခရိုင်) is a district of the Kachin State in northern Burma (Myanmar). The capital lies at Myitkyina. It is the largest district in the country by land area. Townships The dist ...
as part of the peace agreement with the
Kachin Independence Army The Kachin Independence Army (KIA; Kachin: ''ShangLawt Hpyen''; my, ကချင်လွတ်လပ်ရေးတပ်မတော်) is a non-state armed group and the military wing of the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), a pol ...
.


2008 Constitution

The 2008 Constitution stipulates the renaming of the 7 "divisions" ( in Burmese) as "regions" ( (in Burmese
Constitution PDF
in Burmese). It also stipulates the creation of Union territories, which include the capital of Naypyidaw, Nay Pyi Taw and ethnic self-administered zones ( in Burmese) and self-administered divisions ( in Burmese).Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (2008) These self-administered regions include the following: *
Danu Self-Administered Zone The Danu Self-Administered Zone ( my, ဓနု ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရ ဒေသ ), as stipulated by the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, is a self-administered zone consisting of two townships in ...
: consisting of
Ywangan Ywangan Township ( my, ရွာငံမြို့နယ်) is a township located within Taunggyi District, Shan State, Myanmar. It is also part of the Danu Self-Administered Zone The Danu Self-Administered Zone ( my, ဓနု ကိုယ ...
and
Pindaya Pindaya ( my, ပင်းတယမြို့ ''Pìñṯáyá myoú'') is a town in the Shan State of Burma. It is located in the west of the state in Pindaya Township in Taunggyi District. Mainly famous for its limestone caves called Pindaya Ca ...
townships in
Shan State Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the Endonym and exonym, endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. ...
*
Kokang Self-Administered Zone The Kokang Self-Administered Zone ( my, ကိုးကန့် ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရ ဒေသ ), as stipulated by the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, is a self-administered zone in norther ...
: consisting of Konkyan and
Laukkai Laukkai (also known as Laukkaing or Laogai or Laokai; my, လောက်ကိုင်မြို့; ) is the capital of Kokang (also known as Special Region 1) in the northern part of Shan State, Myanmar. It is situated on the Salween River ...
townships in Shan State *
Naga Self-Administered Zone The Naga Self-Administered Zone ( my, နာဂကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရဒေသ ), is a self-administered zone in the Naga Hills area of Sagaing Region of Myanmar. Its administrative seat is ...
: consisting of
Leshi Leshi ( my, လေရှီးမြို့; also spelt Lashi or Layshi), is a town in Naga Hills of Sagaing Division on the north-west frontier of Burma. According to the new 2008 Constitution of the military regime, it will now be grouped to ...
, Lahe, and Namyun townships in
Sagaing Region Sagaing Region ( my, စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Sagaing Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the north-western part of the country between latitude 21° 30' north and lon ...
*
Pa Laung Self-Administered Zone The Palaung Self-Administered Zone ( my, ပလောင် ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရ ဒေသ ) is a self-administered zone consisting of two townships in Shan State: It was created as a separate ...
: consisting of
Namhsan Namhsan ( my, နမ့်ဆန်မြို့; Palaung: Om-yar; ), also spelt Namh San, Namsan, or Nam San, is the capital of Tawngpeng District in northern Shan State of Myanmar (Burma). The town is a popular starting point for trekking ...
and Manton townships in Shan State *
Pa-O Self-Administered Zone The Pa'O Self-Administered Zone ( my, ပအိုဝ်းကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရဒေသ ), as stipulated by the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, is a self-administered zone consisting of three t ...
: consisting of
Hopong Hopong ( my, ဟိုပုန်းမြို့(( blk, ဝေင်ꩻဟိုပုံꩻ) is a town in the Shan State of eastern Burma. Hopong is the capital of Pa'O Self-Administered Zone. It is located in Hopong Township in Taunggyi Dis ...
, Hsihseng, and
Pinlaung Pinlaung is a town above sea level and seat of Pinlaung Township, in the Pa-O Self-Administered Zone of Shan State of eastern-central Burma. It lies along National Road 54, north-west by road from Loikaw. Running through the city center is a rai ...
townships in Shan State *
Wa Self-Administered Division The Wa Self-Administered Division ( my, ဝ ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရ တိုင်း ) is an autonomous self-administered division in Myanmar (Burma). Its official name was announced by decre ...
: consisting of
Hopang Hopang is the capital of Hopang Township, Shan State, Myanmar (Burma). It is also the government designated capital of the Wa Self-Administered Division. Geography Hopang is located in the valley of the Nam Ting River, a tributary of the Salwee ...
,
Mongmao Mong Maoe ( Wa: weng Mēng Hmae; Shan (Dai Yai): ဝဵင်းမိူင်းမႂ်ႇ ''weng Moeng Hmaue'' ''(town of new territory)''; ; ) is the capital town of Mongmao Township of Shan State. It is under ''de facto'' administration of ...
, Panwai, Nahpan, Metman, and Pangsang (Pankham) townships in Shan State On 20 August 2010, the renaming of the 7 divisions and the naming of the 6 self-administered zones was announced by Burmese state media.


See also

*
List of administrative divisions of Myanmar by Human Development Index This is a list of administrative divisions of Myanmar by Human Development Index as of 2020 with data for the year 2019. See also *List of countries by Human Development Index References {{Subnational entities by Human Development Index Hu ...
*
Districts of Myanmar Districts ( my, ခရိုင်, Kharuing; ) are the second-level administrative divisions of Myanmar. They are the sub-divisions of the States and Regions of Myanmar. According to the Myanmar Information Management Unit (MIMU), as of Decemb ...
* List of cities and largest towns in Myanmar * State and Region Government of Myanmar *
List of Burmese flags This is a list of flags used in Myanmar (also known as Burma). State/Union Flag Flags of administrative divisions States Regions Union territory Self-administered zones and divisions Self-administered zones Self-administ ...
* ISO 3166-2:MM


References


External links


Statoids
{{DEFAULTSORT:Administrative Divisions Of Myanmar Lists of subdivisions of Myanmar
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...