Leshi ( my, လေရှီးမြို့; also spelt Lashi or Layshi), is a town in Naga Hills of

Sagaing Division 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 ...

on the north-west

frontier A frontier is the political and geographical area near or beyond a boundary. A frontier can also be referred to as a "front". The term came from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"—the region of a country that fronts o ...

Burma 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 ...

. According to the new 2008

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

of the

military regime A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer. The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...

, it will now be grouped together with Lahe and

Nanyun Nanyun (, , also spelt Namyun) is a town in the Sagaing Division in Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some Britis ...

in Naga Self-Administered Zone. Leshi is reached via

Htamanthi Tamanthi, Htamanthi or Tamanthe is a village on the Chindwin River in Homalin Township in Hkamti District in the Sagaing Region of northwestern Burma. It is located near the Tamanthi Wildlife Reserve. It is near the planned multi-purpose Tamanthi ...

across the Chindwin River by boat from

Homalin Homalin or Hommalinn ( my, ဟုမ္မလင်း မြို့ ) (Shan: ႁုင်းမၢၵ်ႇလၢင်း) is a small town in north-western Burma and capital of the Homalin Township in Hkamti District of the Sagaing Region. The ...

, and there are domestic flights from

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 ...

and

Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fo ...

to Homalin. The Naga

New Year Festival New Year is the time or day currently at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner. In the Gregorian calendar, the most widely used calendar system tod ...

is held on 15 January, and Lahe, Leshi, Hkamti and Nanyun hosted it in rotation until it became state-sponsored for the benefit of

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...

and limited to Leshi and Lahe since 2003 during the time of the ousted

prime minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Khin Nyunt General Khin Nyunt (; ; born 23 October 1939) is a Burmese military officer and politician. He held the office of Chief of Intelligence and was Prime Minister of Myanmar from 25 August 2003 until 18 October 2004. Early life and education Kh ...

. Naga insurgents fighting against the Indian government have bases in the area over the Burmese side of the border. The

Burmese army The Myanmar Army ( my, တပ်မတော်(ကြည်း), ) is the largest branch of the Tatmadaw, Armed Forces (''Tatmadaw'') of Myanmar (Burma) and has the primary responsibility of conducting land-based military operations. The My ...

have launched offensives against these camps in recent years following top level meetings between the two governments. In October 2008, a joint decision between India and Burma was reached to open a new

border trade Border trade, in general, refers to the flow of goods and services across the border between different jurisdictions. In this sense, border trade is a part of the normal trade that flows through the ordinary export/import legal and logistical fram ...

post at Avakhung-Leshi. The inhabitants of Avangkhu had moved their village 4 km closer from its original location of 8 km from the border in order to take advantage of the border trade. Leshi is 25 km from the border and 100 km from Htamanthi.

Notes

External links

Satellite map: Layshi
''

GeoNames GeoNames (or GeoNames.org) is a user editable geographical database available and accessible through various web services, under a Creative Commons attribution license. The project was founded in late 2005. The GeoNames dataset differs from ...

''
Sagaing Division map: 5=Layshi
''Asterism''
Photos of Naga New Year FestivalForeigners Banned at Naga New Year Festival
'

The Irrawaddy ''The Irrawaddy'' () is a news website by the Irrawaddy Publishing Group (IPG), founded in 1990 by Burmese exiles living in Thailand. From its inception, ''The Irrawaddy'' has taken an independent stance on Burmese politics. As a publication pr ...

'', Arkar Moe, December 21, 2009 {{Sagaing Division Township capitals of Myanmar Populated places in Naga Self-Administered Zone