Lower Myanmar ( my, အောက်မြန်မာပြည်, also called Lower Burma) is a geographic region of

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 ...

and includes the low-lying

Irrawaddy Delta The Irrawaddy Delta or Ayeyarwady Delta lies in the Irrawaddy Division, the lowest expanse of land in Myanmar that fans out from the limit of tidal influence at Myan Aung to the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, to the south at the mouth of the A ...

( Ayeyarwady,

Bago Bago may refer to: Places Myanmar * Bago, Myanmar, a city and the capital of the Bago Region * Bago District, a district of the Bago Region * Bago Region an administrative region * Bago River, a river * Bago Yoma or Pegu Range, a mountain rang ...

and

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, and ...

s), as well as coastal regions of the country ( Rakhine and

Mon State Mon State ( my, မွန်ပြည်နယ်, ; mnw, တွဵုရးဍုင်မန်, italics=no) is an administrative division of Myanmar. It lies between Kayin State to the east, the Andaman Sea to the west, Bago Region to the ...

s and

Tanintharyi Region Tanintharyi Region ( my, တနင်္သာရီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; Mon: or ; ms, Tanah Sari; formerly Tenasserim Division and subsequently Tanintharyi Division, th, ตะนาวศรี, RTGS: ''Tanao Si'', ...

). In the

Burmese language Burmese ( my, မြန်မာဘာသာ, MLCTS: ''mranmabhasa'', IPA: ) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Myanmar (also known as Burma), where it is an official language, lingua franca, and the native language of the Burmans, the count ...

, people originating from

Upper Myanmar 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 ...

are typically called ''a-nya-tha'' for men and ''a-nya-thu'' for women, whereas those from Lower Myanmar are called ''auk tha'' () for men and ''auk thu'' for women. Historically, Lower Myanmar referred to the part of

annexed by the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

after the end of the

Second Anglo-Burmese War The Second Anglo-Burmese War or the Second Burma War ( my, ဒုတိယ အင်္ဂလိပ် မြန်မာ စစ် ; 5 April 185220 January 1853) was the second of the Anglo-Burmese Wars, three wars fought between the Konbaung dy ...

in 1852, plus the former kingdom of

Arakan Arakan ( or ) is a historic coastal region in Southeast Asia. Its borders faced the Bay of Bengal to its west, the Indian subcontinent to its north and Burma proper to its east. The Arakan Mountains isolated the region and made it accessi ...

and the territory of Tenasserim which the British had taken control of in 1826 through the

Treaty of Yandabo The Treaty of Yandabo ( my, ရန္တပိုစာချုပ် ) was the peace treaty that ended the First Anglo-Burmese War. The treaty was signed on 24February 1826, nearly two years after the war formally broke out on 5March 1824, by ...

. Lower Myanmar was centred at

Rangoon 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 composed of all of the coast of modern

, and also the lower basin of the

Irrawaddy River The Irrawaddy River ( Ayeyarwady River; , , from Indic ''revatī'', meaning "abounding in riches") is a river that flows from north to south through Myanmar (Burma). It is the country's largest river and most important commercial waterway. Origi ...

, including

Prome Pyay (, ; mnw, ပြန် , ; also known as Prome and Pyè) is principal town of Pyay Township in the Bago Region in Myanmar. Pyay is located on the bank of the Irrawaddy River, north-west of Yangon. It is an important trade center for the Ayey ...

. Until the early 19th century, Lower Myanmar was predominantly populated by the Mon and

Karen Karen may refer to: * Karen (name), a given name and surname * Karen (slang), a term and meme for a demanding woman displaying certain behaviors People * Karen people, an ethnic group in Myanmar and Thailand ** Karen languages or Karenic l ...

tribes and was a historical stronghold of the Mon people. Regions of Myanmar

References

History of Myanmar + {{Burma-geo-stub