The Hukawng Valley ( my, ဟူးကောင်းချိုင့်ဝှမ်း; also spelt Hukaung Valley) is an isolated valley in

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 ...

, roughly in area. It is located in

Tanaing Township Danai ( my, တနိုင်းမြို့) is a town in Kachin State, in the northernmost part of Myanmar. Kachin State (Jingpho language, Kachin: ''Wunpawng Mungdan''; Burmese language, Burmese: ကချင်ပြည်နယ်) is t ...

in the

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 ...

Kachin State Kachin State ( my, ကချင်ပြည်နယ်; Kachin: ), also known by the endonym Kachinland, is the northernmost state of Myanmar. It is bordered by China to the north and east (Tibet and Yunnan, specifically and respectively); Sh ...

in the northernmost part of the country. It has the

Hukaung Valley Wildlife Sanctuary Hukaung Valley Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected area in northern Myanmar, covering . It was established in 2004 and extended to its present size in 2010. It was initially gazetted in 2004 with an area of in Tanaing Township and extended to Kamain ...

Rivers

The rivers draining into the Hukawng Valley, the Tanai Kha, the Tabye, the Tawan, and the Turong, form the headwaters of the

Chindwin River , , image = Homalin aerial.jpg , image_size = , image_caption = The Chindwin at Homalin. The smaller, meandering Uyu River can be seen joining the Chindwin. , map = Irrawaddyrivermap.jpg , map_size = , map_alt = , map_caption ...

Protected area

Ringed by steep

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 ...

s to the north, east and west, the valley is known as a habitat of

tigers The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on un ...

, but encroachment by man has greatly decreased their numbers, to perhaps as few as 100 animals. In 2004, the government established the world's largest tiger preserve in the Hukawng Valley, the

, with an area of approximately ; later, the Sanctuary was extended to 21,800 km², making it the largest protected area in mainland Southeast Asia. The government's establishment of the preserve was accomplished in cooperation with the

Kachin Independent 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 po ...

, a formerly-rebel group that inhabits the region. The extremely rare

leaf muntjac The leaf muntjac, leaf deer or Putao muntjac (''Muntiacus putaoensis'') is a small species of muntjac. It was documented in 1997 by biologist Alan Rabinowitz during his field study in the isolated Nogmung Township in Myanmar. Rabinowitz discovered ...

, also known as the ''phet-gyi'', dwarf deer or leaf deer, also lives in the Hukawng.

Industries

Major industry includes

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In Ma ...

and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

; most gold mines are now depleted, but the toxic chemicals from former gold extraction have not been cleared, and are seeping into the groundwater.

Discoveries

The valley is well known for

Burmese amber Burmese amber, also known as Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. The amber is dated to around 100 million years ago, during the latest Albian to earliest Cenomanian ages of the mid-Cretaceous period. The ...

, a type of

dating back to the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

period, around 99 million years ago.

History

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the

Ledo Road The Ledo Road (from Ledo, Assam, India to Kunming, Yunnan, China) was an overland connection between India and China, built during World War II to enable the Western Allies to deliver supplies to China and aid the war effort against Japan. ...

was built by the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

across the Hukawng Valley, largely by African-American engineer battalions and Chinese laborers, in order to supply the armies of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

, who were then allied with the

Western Allies The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. ...

in the war against the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

References

External links

World's Biggest Tiger Reserve
Valleys of Myanmar World War II sites in Burma Kachin State {{Burma-geo-stub