The Arakan Mountains ( my, ရခိုင်ရိုးမ), also known as the Rakhine Yoma, are a
mountain range
A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...
in western
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 Wells explai ...
, between the coast of
Rakhine State
Rakhine State (; , , ; formerly known as Arakan State) is a state in Myanmar (Burma). Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State to the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Region to the east, the Bay of Ben ...
and the Central Myanmar Basin, in which flows the
Irrawaddy River. It is the most prominent of a series of parallel ridges that arc through
Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
,
Nagaland
Nagaland () is a landlocked state in the northeastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south and the Sagaing Region of Myanmar to the east. Its capital cit ...
,
Manipur
Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of ...
,
Mizoram
Mizoram () is a state in Northeast India, with Aizawl as its seat of government and capital city. The name of the state is derived from "Mizo", the self-described name of the native inhabitants, and "Ram", which in the Mizo language means "lan ...
and Myanmar.
The Arakan Mountains run from
Cape Negrais
Cape Negrais (, also known as Pagoda Point (ဆံတော်ရှင်မြတ်ငူ) or Mawtin Point (မော်တင်စွန်း, Mawtin Soon), is a cape in Burma (Myanmar), west of the Irrawaddy Delta. It is located 133 km ...
in the south in to
Manipur
Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of ...
, India in the north. They include the
Naga Hills, the
Chin Hills
The Chin Hills are a range of mountains in Chin State, northwestern Burma (Myanmar), that extends northward into India's Manipur state.
Geography
The highest peak in the Chin Hills is Khonu Msung, or Mount Victoria, in southern Chin State, whic ...
, and the
Patkai range
The Pat-kai (Pron:pʌtˌkaɪ) or Patkai Bum ( Burmese: ''Kumon Taungdan'') are a series of mountains in the Indo-Myanmar border falling in the north-eastern Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Upper Burma region of Myanmar. They ...
which includes the
Lushai Hills.
The mountain chain is submerged in the
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...
for a long stretch and emerges again in the form of the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...
.
Etymology
The word ''Arakan'' is derived from the
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
word ''Rakshasa'' (राक्षस), a term used to refer to the inhabitants of the region.
Geology and formation
The Arakan Mountains and the parallel arcs to the west and east were formed by compression as the
Indian Plate
The Indian Plate (or India Plate) is a minor tectonic plate straddling the equator in the Eastern Hemisphere. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, the Indian Plate broke away from the other fragments of Gondwana , began ...
collided with the
Eurasian Plate
The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...
approximately along the boundary between India and Myanmar which produced the Naga-Patkai foldbelt.
[Akhtar, Mohammad S. ''et al.'' (2010]
"Structural Style and Deformation History of Assam & Assam Arakan Basin, India: from Integrated Seismic Study"
(adapted from oral presentation at AAPG Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado, June 7–10, 2009)
High points
The Arakan Mountain Range is over 600 miles (950 km) long,
with about 250 miles (400 km) of actual mountains. The highest point in the range is
Khonu Msung
Nat Ma Taung ( my, နတ်မတောင်; Khaw-nu-soum or Khonuamthung in Chin), also known as Mount Victoria, is the highest mountain in the Chin State of western Burma.
Geography
With a height of above sea level and a prominence of , N ...
(or Mount Victoria) at .
Infrastructure
The Arakan Mountains are crossed by a road between
Ngape
Ngape Township ( my, ငဖဲ မြို့နယ်) is a township of Minbu District in the Magway Division of Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ e ...
and
Minbu
Minbu ( my, မင်းဘူးမြို့) is a city in Magwe Division, Myanmar. , the city has an urban population of 22,962. The area consists of low plain-land towards the Ayeyarwady River, and of undulating country inland rising high ...
and by an all-weather road from Taungup to
Pyay on the Irrawaddy.
History
The Arakan Mountains divide the Rakhine coast from the rest of Myanmar, and thus have acted as a barrier between the peoples of central Myanmar and those of the Indian subcontinent. This played a role in fostering the separate development of the
Rakhine people, both linguistically and culturally, from the
Burmese. The Arakan Mountains also served as a barrier inhibiting Burmese invasions, and allowing Arakan to develop as a separate political entity. Thus the coastal cities, such as
Mrauk U
Mrauk U ( ) is a town in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. It is the capital of Mrauk-U Township, a subregion of the Mrauk-U District.
Mrauk U is of great cultural importance to the local Rakhine (Arakanese) people, and is the location of many ...
and
Waithali
Waithali ( my, ဝေသာလီမြို့, , pi, Vesālī) located in today's northern Rakhine State, Myanmar, was the capital of the Waithali Kingdom from 788 to 1018. The former capital site is approximately north-east of Sittwe, and ...
, formed the core of Arakan civilization.
There were fierce battles in these mountains between January 1943 and March 1944 during the
Japanese occupation of Burma. The Japanese 33rd and 55th Divisions faced the British military on the coastal side of the range. The British forces won.
Ecology
The Arakan Mountains act as a barrier to the southwestern monsoon rains and thus shield the central Myanmar area, making their western slopes extraordinarily wet during the monsoon with typically over of rain per month, and the eastern slopes much drier.
They include the
Chin Hills-Arakan Yoma montane forests ecoregion which is home to an
elephant
Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae ...
population and also the critically endangered
Arakan forest turtle
The Arakan forest turtle (''Heosemys depressa'') is a critically endangered turtle species native to the Arakan Hills in western Myanmar and the bordering Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. The Arakan forest turtle is a semiterrestrial turt ...
which was considered extinct until its rediscovery in 1994.
[ Listed as Critically Endangered (CR A2cd+4cd v3.1)]
Notes
{{Reflist
External links
Burma - GeographyGoogle Books, ''The Physical Geography of Southeast Asia''
Mountain ranges of Myanmar