Kyaukpyu ( my, ကျောက်ဖြူမြို့ ; also spelt Kyaukphyu) is a major town in

Rakhine State Rakhine State (; , , ; formerly known as Arakan State) is a Administrative divisions of Myanmar, state in Myanmar (Burma). Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State to the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady R ...

, 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 C. Wells, Joh ...

. It is located on the north western corner of Yanbye Island on Combermere Bay, and is 250 miles (400 km) north-west of

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 ...

. It is the principal town of

Kyaukpyu Township Kyaukpyu Township ( my, ကျောက်ဖြူမြို့နယ်) is a township of Kyaukpyu District in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. The principal town is Kyaukpyu. At Ma Day Island of Kyaukpyu Township, a deep sea port was being built ...

and

Kyaukpyu District Kyaukpyu District ( my, ကျောက်ဖြူခရိုင်) is a district of the Rakhine State in western Myanmar. The capital lies at Kyaukphyu. Etymology The name Kyaukpyu (lit. "white rock") is the Burmese pronunciation. In the lo ...

. The town is situated on a superb natural harbor which connects the rice trade between

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

and Yangon. The estimated population in 1983 was 19,456 inhabitants. The population of Kyaukpyu Urban area is 20,866 as of 2014, while

's population is 165,352.

Etymology

The name Kyaukpyu (lit. "white rock") is the

Burmese Burmese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia * Burmese people * Burmese language * Burmese alphabet * Burmese cuisine * Burmese culture Animals * Burmese cat * Burmese chicken * Burmese (hor ...

pronunciation. In the local Rangbre pronunciation of the natives of Kyaukpyu and in standard Arakanese, the town's name is pronounced "Kyaukpru". The old Kyaukpyu is situated 7 miles from the present town where two colossal white rocks exist.

History

The place where the present town is, was originally a small fishing village in the 17th Century. After the first

Anglo-Burmese War The Anglo-Burmese Wars were a clash between two expanding empires, the British Empire against the Konbaung Dynasty that became British India‘s most expensive and longest war, costing 5–13 million pounds sterling (£400 million – £1.1 billio ...

, the British established Kyaukpyu in 1837 on the spot of the fishing village. In 1852, Kyaukphyu became a district city. On October 22, 2010,

Cyclone Giri Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Giri ( IMD designation: BOB 04, JTWC designation 04B, also known as Cyclone Giri) was a powerful tropical cyclone in terms of 1-minute sustained wind speed which caused catastrophic damage in parts of Myanmar in lat ...

made landfall on the west coast of Myanmar just north of the town at category five strength.

Climate

Kyaukpyu has a

tropical monsoon climate An area of tropical monsoon climate (occasionally known as a sub-equatorial, tropical wet climate or a tropical monsoon and trade-wind littoral climate) is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification category ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

''Am''). Temperatures are very warm throughout the year, although the winter months (December–February) are somewhat milder. There is a winter dry season (December–April) and a summer wet season (May–November). Torrential rain falls from June to August, with over falling in July alone.

Demographics

The town is populated with Arakanese Buddhists. There are also small Indian group, Kameins and Chins at Kyaukphru.

Quarters or wards

*Eastern Quarter *Western Quarter *Central Quarter *Mrit Nar Dan Quarter *Zayditaung Quarter *Asoera Quarter *Ararshi Quarter *Thanbanchaung Quarter *Paikseik (West) Quarter *Paikseik (East) Quarter *Taung Rong Quarter *Toe Chayy Quarter *NgaLaPwee Quarter *Kanyin Taw Quarter *KaLaBa Taung Quarter *Zetiya Quarter

Attractions

* Kyaukpyu Viewpoint, or more popularly known as ''Point'' is perhaps the best known attraction in Kyaukpyu. It is at the end of the Strand Road and looks out into the Bay of Bengal and the mouth of the Thanzit (Kyaukpyu) River. *''Gant-gaw-taw'', is one of the most sacred Buddhist shrine, believed to have built in the Vesali period. *''Kyauk-ta-lone phaya'', built by King Min-ba in the

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 ...

period, is the focal point of Kyaukpyu's Buddhist environment, beside Gant-gaw-taw shrine. • The Japan-Myanmar Relationship Pagoda, in the outskirts of the city, is popular among the city's small Japanese population.

Education

Teacher training college A normal school or normal college is an institution created to Teacher education, train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high s ...

(TTC) was opened in Kyaukpyu in 1953. Now, this college is known as "Kyaukpyu Education College". In 1954, ''Kyaukpyu Intermediate College'' for Arakan, the embryo of

Sittwe University Sittwe (; ; formerly Akyab) is the capital of Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). Sittwe, pronounced ''sait-tway'' in the Rakhine language, is located on an estuarial island created at the confluence of the Kaladan, Mayu, and Lay Mro rivers emptyi ...

was opened in Kyaukpyu. Kyaukpyu GTI was opened in 2014.

Other

Maurice Collis, a famous British writer, lived in Kyaukpyu in 1920s. His house, situated outskirts of Kyaukpyu is maintained as a historic building. Water ways is the main mode of transportation and traveling. There were boat accidents because of poor maintenance and lack of enforcement on regulation. Over 100 were assumed to be dead in ''Aung Takon 3'' ferry accident of March 2015.

Naval base

Google Earth imagery dated 25 July 2020 shows an active naval base to be present 5.83 km west of the town at 19.4125, 93.60197. The base has permanent personnel accommodation, support buildings and a dedicated

jetty A jetty is a structure that projects from land out into water. A jetty may serve as a breakwater, as a walkway, or both; or, in pairs, as a means of constricting a channel. The term derives from the French word ', "thrown", signifying somet ...

. Several corvettes and patrol boats have been observed moored at this jetty.

Economy

Port

In June 2007,

Asia World Asia World Group ( my, အာရှဓန ကုမ္ပဏီ) is a Burmese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It is Myanmar's largest and most diversified conglomerate, with interests in industrial development, construction, transportation, ...

announced that it would be building a deep sea port on Maday Island in Kyaukphyu. The port will be a transit point for goods destined for Yangon, Kolkata, and Chittagong. The port is part of the

21st Century Maritime Silk Road The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (Chinese: 21世纪海上丝绸之路), commonly just Maritime Silk Road (MSR), is the sea route part of the Belt and Road Initiative which is a Chinese strategic initiative to increase investment and foster col ...

that runs from the Chinese coast to the south via

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

towards the southern tip of India, then through the Red Sea via the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...

to the Mediterranean, there via

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

and

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

to the Upper Adriatic region to the northern Italian hub of

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

with its rail connections to

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the area' ...

and the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

, and would also be the maritime endpoint of the

China-Myanmar Economic Corridor China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) is a number of infrastructure projects supporting connectivity between Myanmar and China. It is an economic corridor of the Belt and Road Initiative. Transportation The infrastructure development plan calls ...

Oil pipeline

In December 2008, China and Burma signed a deal to construct an oil pipeline at Kyaukphyu. On 30 November 2010, the

China Development Bank The China Development Bank (CDB) () is a development bank in the People's Republic of China (PRC), led by a cabinet minister at the Governor level, under the direct jurisdiction of the State Council. As one of three policy banks in China, it ...

and Myanmar Foreign Investment Bank signed a $2.4 billion loan deal to construct the

pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

from Kyaukphyu to

Kunming Kunming (; ), also known as Yunnan-Fu, is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, China. It is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headquar ...

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

province, China. The pipeline is expected to be completed in 2015 and capable of transporting 400,000 barrels of oil per day. These construction projects will allow China to directly obtain oil and gas from the Middle East (via the port terminal at Kyaukphyu), thereby avoiding shipping through the Malacca Straits.

Natural gas pipeline and terminal

Separately, as reported by the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

in February 2013, nearly 2,000 workers are finalising close to Kyaukphyu, a major natural gas projects, the Shwe gas pipeline and onshore terminal. This terminal and pipeline are being built by South Korea's Daewoo International in a consortium with state-owned Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (

MOGE Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise ( my, မြန်မာ့ရေနံနှင့် သဘာဝဓါတ်ငွေ့လုပ်ငန်း; abbreviated MOGE) is a national oil and gas company of Myanmar. It was established in 1963. MOG ...

) and others. From May 2013, this pipeline is planned to pump about 12bn cubic metres of natural gas annually, most of which will also go to China via nearby Maday island. These oil and gas

Sino-Burma pipelines Sino-Myanmar pipelines refers to the oil and natural gas pipelines linking Myanmar's deep-water port of Kyaukphyu (Sittwe) in the Bay of Bengal with Kunming in Yunnan province of China. History Talks between China and Myanmar on the feasibility ...

projects are supervised by a Myanmar " Kyaukpyu Special Economic Zone" agency and are estimated to use about U$3bn of investments and to have the potential of creating over 200,000 jobs, while additional capital will be required to develop a port for dry containerized and bulk cargoes, as well as a railway which will link Kyaukphyu to Kunming, in Yunnan.

Kunming-Kyaukpyu Railway

The railway project would be 1,215 km long, and its design and construction are subject to a preliminary agreement between Myanmar's and China's government. In 2009, a railway link through to

Jiegao Jiegao (; tdd, ᥓᥥ ᥐᥝᥱ) is a border trade zone in southern China near the border with Myanmar. It is located southeast of Ruili and is part of Yunnan province. Geography Jiegao is located on the east bank of the Shweli River, surrou ...

in China was proposed. In 2011 the proposal was expanded to a link between

and Kyaukphyu. President Thein Sein's signed a memorandum of understanding during his May 2011 visit to

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

between Myanmar's rail transport ministry and China's state-owned Railway Engineering Corporation to build the railway. It will also connect to

Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project The Kaladan Road Project is a US$484 million project connecting the eastern Indian seaport of Kolkata with Sittwe seaport in Rakhine State, Myanmar by sea. In Myanmar, it will then link Sittwe seaport to Paletwa in Chin State via the Kaladan riv ...

via 311 km link to be completed by 2021–22, from

Kyaukhtu Kyaukhtu or Kyaukhtu is a small town in Saw Township, Magway Region, Myanmar near the Chin Hills. Kyauktu (Kyaukhtu) is the second largest town in Saw Township. Kyaukhtu area is known as part of Southern Yaw by local people. It is like a gateway c ...

in north to

Ann Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie. Anne is sometimes used as a male name in the ...

in south and then south-east to Minbu. The

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

line to Kyaukpyu port opened in 2021.

Special Economic Zone and its impact

Myanmar government officials have stated that these massive projects will be conducted with enhanced consultation with the local population. In this respect, there has already been protests by some locals against the consequences of some of these projects, such as potential impact on fishing or land confiscations which may be conducted by authorities for these terminals and pipelines. A December 2012 report by the "Arakan Oil Watch" organization about plans to build a special economic zone near Kyaukphyu on Ramree Island in Arakan State, claimed it would "endanger the health of thousands of people and destroy Myanmar's second largest mangrove forest". The report, titled "Danger Zone," states that around 40 villages would be adversely affected by the project, which would use 120 km² of pristine coastline. End December 2015, the Myanmar government announced that it had chosen a consortium of mostly Chinese companies to develop a special economic zone and a deep-water port, as a result of a tender initiated in 2014 for an industrial park and a deep-water port to be built and operated as public–private partnerships. The selected Chinese-led consortium won over a dozen other bidders to win the development rights late last year. The six companies in the consortium include China state-owned groups Citic (finance),

China Harbour Engineering China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC) is an engineering contractor and a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), providing infrastructure construction, such as marine engineering, dredging and reclamation, road and ...

, China Merchants Holdings (International), TEDA Investment Holding, Yunnan Construction Engineering Group (YNJG), and the Charoen Pokphand Group, a Thai conglomerate. CITIC and the six other investing firms will hold an 85 percent stake, with the Burmese government taking the rest. While

is a well known engineering firm for designing and building deep sea ports, the

China Merchants Group China Merchants Group Limited () is an international state-owned corporation (SOE) of the People's Republic of China. The company is operating under the auspices of the Chinese Ministry of Transport. Founded in 1872 China Merchants Steam Navig ...

, through some of its affiliates (

China Merchants Holdings (International) China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited () is a major conglomerate based in Hong Kong and is involved in a range of businesses such as port operations, general and bulk cargo transportation, container and shipping business, air cargo, lo ...

, both listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, and China Merchants Energy Shipping) is a global operator of ports as well as of oil tanker and dry bulk ships which has been approved to absorb in 2016 another Chinese state-controlled tanker and bulk ships operator, Sinotrans Shipping. By 2025, the consortium plans to build a roughly 1,000-hectare industrial park and Myanmar's highest-capacity port, with facilities able to handle 7 million 20-foot-equivalent-units (TEU) of containerized cargo per year. Total project costs are estimated to be in the range of several billion dollars. The projects are said to lead to the creation of some 100,000 jobs. Some analysts claim that the Kyaukpyu deep-water port has a strategic dimension as part of China's

Belt and Road Initiative The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, or B&R), formerly known as One Belt One Road ( zh, link=no, 一带一路) or OBOR for short, is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in nearly 150 ...

and String of Pearls strategy. The Kyaukpyu port and Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is one of three major port and coastal development projects in Myanmar, together with the

Thilawa Myanmar International Terminals Thilawa ( my, မြန်မာ အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ ဆိပ်ကမ်း သီလဝါ, abbreviated MITT), also known as the Yangon Port International Terminal or Thilawa Port, ...

zone near

, the country's most populous and economically developed city, and the

Dawei 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 ...

zone in the south-east, near the Thai border, all of which have attracted major financial and industrial interests.

References

External links

* Taipei American Chamber of Commerce; Topics Magazine, Analysis, November 2012
Myanmar: Southeast Asia's Last Frontier for Investment
BY DAVID DUBYNE * Oilseedcrops.org; Editor Article, Transit routes from western China through Myanmar
Myanmar: the Missing Link from Western China to India's N.E. States
{{Rakhine State Township capitals of Myanmar Populated places in Rakhine State