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Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city 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 ...
, after
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 ...
. Located on the east bank 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 ...
, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was founded in 1857 by King Mindon, replacing
Amarapura Amarapura ( my, အမရပူရ, MLCTS=a. ma. ra. pu ra., , ; also spelt as Ummerapoora) is a former capital of Myanmar, and now a township of Mandalay city. Amarapura is bounded by the Irrawaddy river in the west, Chanmyathazi Township in t ...
as the new royal capital of the
Konbaung dynasty The Konbaung dynasty ( my, ကုန်းဘောင်ခေတ်, ), also known as Third Burmese Empire (တတိယမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) and formerly known as the Alompra dynasty (အလောင်းဘ ...
. It was Burma's final royal capital before the kingdom's annexation 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 ...
in 1885. Under British rule, Mandalay remained commercially and culturally important despite the rise of Yangon, the new capital of British Burma. The city suffered extensive destruction during the
Japanese conquest of Burma The Japanese invasion of Burma was the opening phase of the Burma campaign in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II, which took place over four years from 1942 to 1945. During the first year of the campaign (December 1941 to mid-1942) ...
in the
Second World War 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 ...
. In 1948, Mandalay became part of the newly independent Union of Burma. Today, Mandalay is the economic centre of
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 ...
and considered the centre of Burmese culture. A continuing influx of illegal
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
immigrants, mostly from
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 ...
, since the late 20th century, has reshaped the city's ethnic makeup and increased commerce with China. Despite
Naypyidaw Naypyidaw, officially spelled Nay Pyi Taw (; ), is the capital and third-largest city of Myanmar. The city is located at the centre of the Naypyidaw Union Territory. It is unusual among Myanmar's cities, as it is an entirely planned city outs ...
's recent rise, Mandalay remains Upper Myanmar's main commercial, educational and health center.


Etymology

The city gets its name from the nearby
Mandalay Hill Mandalay Hill ( ) is a hill that is located to the northeast of the city centre of Mandalay in Myanmar. The city took its name from the hill. Mandalay Hill is known for its abundance of pagodas and monasteries, and has been a major pilgrimage s ...
. The name is probably a derivative of a
Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...
word, although the exact word of origin remains unclear. The root word has been speculated to be ' (မဏ္ဍလ), referring to circular plains or '' Mandara'', a mountain from Hindu mythology. When it was founded in 1857, the royal city was officially named Yadanabon (, ), a loan of the Pali name Ratanapūra () "City of Gems." It was also called ''Lay Kyun Aung Myei'' (, , "Victorious Land over the Four Islands") and
Mandalay Palace The Mandalay Palace ( my, မန္တလေး နန်းတော်, ), located in Mandalay, Myanmar, is the last royal palace of the last Burmese monarchy. The palace was constructed between 1857 and 1859 as part of King Mindon's founding ...
(, , "Famed Royal Emerald Palace").


History


Early history

Like most former (and present) capitals of Burma, Mandalay was founded on the wishes of the ruler of the day. On 13 February 1857, King Mindon founded a new royal capital at the foot of
Mandalay Hill Mandalay Hill ( ) is a hill that is located to the northeast of the city centre of Mandalay in Myanmar. The city took its name from the hill. Mandalay Hill is known for its abundance of pagodas and monasteries, and has been a major pilgrimage s ...
, ostensibly to fulfill a prophecy on the founding of a metropolis of Buddhism in that exact place on the occasion of the 2,400th jubilee of Buddhism. The new capital city site was in area, surrounded by four rivers. The plan called for a 144-square block grid patterned citadel, anchored by a 16 square block royal palace compound at the center by Mandalay Hill. The 1020-acre (413-hectare) citadel was surrounded by four long walls and a moat wide, deep. At intervals of along the wall, were turrets with gold-tipped spires for watchmen. The walls had three gates on each side, and five bridges to cross the moat. In addition, the king also commissioned the
Kuthodaw Pagoda Kuthodaw Pagoda ( my, ကုသိုလ်တော်‌ဘုရား, ; literally ''Royal Merit'', and formally titled Mahalawka Marazein ) is a Buddhist stupa, located in Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), that contains the world's largest book. ...
, the ''Pahtan-haw Shwe Thein''
Ordination Hall The ordination hall is a Buddhist building specifically consecrated and designated for the performance of the Buddhist ordination ritual ('' upasampada'') and other ritual ceremonies, such as the recitation of the Patimokkha. The ordination hall ...
, the ''Thudamma''
zayat A zayat (; ; from Mon ) is a Burmese building found in almost every village. It serves primarily as a shelter for travelers, at the same time, is also an assembly place for religious occasions as well as meeting for the villagers to discuss ...
s or public houses for preaching Buddhism and a library for the
Pāli Canon The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school. During th ...
. In June 1857, the former royal palace of
Amarapura Amarapura ( my, အမရပူရ, MLCTS=a. ma. ra. pu ra., , ; also spelt as Ummerapoora) is a former capital of Myanmar, and now a township of Mandalay city. Amarapura is bounded by the Irrawaddy river in the west, Chanmyathazi Township in t ...
was dismantled and moved by elephants to the new location at the foot of Mandalay Hill, although construction of the palace compound was officially completed only two years later, on Monday, 23 May 1859. For the next 26 years, Mandalay was to be the last royal capital of the
Konbaung Dynasty The Konbaung dynasty ( my, ကုန်းဘောင်ခေတ်, ), also known as Third Burmese Empire (တတိယမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) and formerly known as the Alompra dynasty (အလောင်းဘ ...
, the last independent Burmese kingdom before its final annexation 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 ...
. Mandalay ceased to be the capital on 28 November 1885 when the British conquered the city, looted the
Pitakataik ''Pitakataik'' ( my, ပိဋကတ်တိုက်; also spelt ''bidagat taik'' and ''pitaka taik'') is a library of Buddhist scriptures, including the Tipiṭaka, found in Buddhist societies in modern-day Myanmar (Burma). History The ''pitaka ...
(Royal Library) and sent
Thibaw Min Thibaw Min, also Thebaw or Theebaw ( my, သီပေါ‌မင်း, ; 1 January 1859 – 19 December 1916) was the last king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma (Myanmar) and also the last Burmese monarch in the country's history. His re ...
and his queen
Supayalat , image = Queen Supayalat of Burma.jpg , image_size = , caption = , succession = Chief queen consort of Burma , reign = 12 April 1879 – 29 November 1885 , predecessor ...
into exile, ending the
Third Anglo-Burmese War The Third Anglo-Burmese War ( my, တတိယ အင်္ဂလိပ် – မြန်မာစစ်, Tatiya Anggalip–Mran cac), also known as the Third Burma War, took place during 7–29 November 1885, with sporadic resistance conti ...
.


Colonial Mandalay (1885–1948)

While Mandalay would continue to be the chief city of Upper Burma during the British colonial rule, the commercial and political importance had irreversibly shifted to Yangon. The British view on the development of Mandalay (and Burma) was mainly with commercial intentions. While rail transport reached Mandalay in 1889, less than four years after the annexation, the first college in Mandalay, Mandalay College, was not established until 40 years later, in 1925. The British looted the palace, with some of the treasures going on display in the
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
; in 1964 they were returned to Burma as a gesture of goodwill. The British also renamed the palace compound Fort Dufferin and used it to billet troops. Throughout the colonial years, Mandalay was the centre of Burmese culture and Buddhist learning, and as the last royal capital, was regarded by the Burmese as a primary symbol of sovereignty and identity. Between the two World Wars, the city was Upper Burma's focal point in a series of nationwide protests against the British rule. The British rule brought in many immigrants from India to the city. In 1904–05, a plague caused about one-third of the population to flee the city. 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 ...
, Mandalay suffered the most devastating air raids of the war. On 3 April 1942, during the
Japanese conquest of Burma The Japanese invasion of Burma was the opening phase of the Burma campaign in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II, which took place over four years from 1942 to 1945. During the first year of the campaign (December 1941 to mid-1942) ...
, the
Imperial Japanese Army Air Service The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) or Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF; ja, 大日本帝國陸軍航空部隊, Dainippon Teikoku Rikugun Kōkūbutai, lit=Greater Japan Empire Army Air Corps) was the aviation force of the Im ...
carried out an extensive assault. The city was in effect defenseless as its firefighting resources were weak, having been lost in earlier bombing, it had no anti-aircraft capacity, and the British
RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
had by now withdrawn all its aircraft to India. Three-fifths of Mandalay's houses were destroyed and 2,000 civilians were killed. Many residents also fled when the city was under
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
occupation from May 1942 to March 1945. The palace citadel, which had been turned into a supply depot by the Japanese, was in turn burnt to the ground by Allied bombing; only the royal
mint MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaA ...
and the watch tower survived. (A faithful replica of the palace was rebuilt in the 1990s.)


Contemporary Mandalay (1948–present)

After the country gained independence from Britain in 1948, Mandalay continued to be the main cultural, educational and economic hub of Upper Burma. Until the early 1990s, most students from Upper Burma went to Mandalay for university education. Until 1991,
Mandalay University Mandalay University (also translated as University of Mandalay; my, မန္တလေးတက္ကသိုလ် ) is a public liberal arts and science university located in Mandalay, Myanmar and one of the sixteen autonomous universities un ...
, the
University of Medicine, Mandalay The University of Medicine, Mandalay ( my, ဆေးတက္ကသိုလ် (မန္တလေး), ; formerly Institute of Medicine, Mandalay), located in Mandalay is one of five medical universities in Myanmar. The university offers Bachelo ...
and the
Defence Services Academy The Defence Services Academy ( my, စစ်‌တက္ကသိုလ်, ) located in Pyin Oo Lwin, is the premier military service academy of Myanmar, training future officers for all three branches of Myanmar military. The Ministry of Defence ...
were the only three universities in Upper Burma. Only a few other cities had "Degree Colleges" affiliated with Mandalay University that offered a limited number of subjects. Today, the city attracts a fraction of students as the military government requires students to attend their local universities in order to reduce concentration of students in one place. In November 1959, Mandalay celebrated its centennial with a festival at the foot of Mandalay Hill. Special
commemorative stamp A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event, person, or object. The ''subject'' of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike def ...
s were issued. During
Ne Win Ne Win ( my, နေဝင်း ; 10 July 1910, or 14 or 24 May 1911 – 5 December 2002) was a Burmese politician and military commander who served as Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma ...
's isolationist rule (1962–1988), the city's infrastructure deteriorated. By the early 1980s, the second largest city of Burma resembled a town with low-rise buildings and dusty streets filled mostly with bicycles. In the 1980s, the city was hit by two major fires. In May 1981, a fire razed more than 6,000 houses and public buildings, leaving more than 36,000 homeless. On 24 March 1984, another fire destroyed 2,700 buildings and made 23,000 people homeless. Fires continue to plague the city. A major fire destroyed Mandalay's second largest market,
Yadanabon Market Yadanabon Market ( my, ရတနာပုံဈေး) is 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, th ...
, in February 2008, and another major fire in February 2009 destroyed 320 homes and left over 1600 people homeless.


Illegal Chinese immigration

The 1980s fires augured a significant change in the city's physical character and ethnic makeup. Huge swaths of land left vacant by the fires were later purchased, mostly by the ethnic Han Chinese, many of whom were recent immigrants from
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 ...
. The Chinese influx accelerated after the current
State Peace and Development Council The State Peace and Development Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေး နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ ; abbreviated SPDC or , ) was the offi ...
came to power in 1988. Many Chinese immigrants from Yunnan (and also from
Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...
) poured into
Upper Burma 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 ...
in the 1990s and many openly ended up in Mandalay, living illegally there. In the 1990s alone, about 250,000 to 300,000 Yunnanese are estimated to have migrated to Mandalay. Today, ethnic Chinese people are believed to make up about 40%–50% of the city's population that is nearly the same as the natives, and are a major factor in the city's doubling of population from about 500,000 in 1980 to one million in 2008. Chinese festivals are now firmly embedded in the city's cultural calendar. The Chinese dominance in the city center has pushed out the rest to the suburbs. The urban sprawl now encompasses Amarapura, the very city King Mindon left some 150 years ago. Mandalay celebrated its 150th birthday on 15 May 2009, at precisely 4:31:36 am. Despite the rise of Naypyidaw, the country's capital since 2006, Mandalay remains Upper Burma's main commercial, educational and health center. In October 2018, Mandalay was ranked by CIO Asia as number fifth among the top 10 cities in Southeast Asia in the process of becoming a
smart city A smart city is a technologically modern urban area that uses different types of electronic methods and sensors to collect specific data. Information gained from that data is used to manage assets, resources and services efficiently; in return ...
for ASEAN Smart Cities Network.


Geography


Location

Mandalay is located in the central dry zone of Burma by the Irrawaddy river at 21.98° North, 96.08° East, 80 meters (260 feet) above sea level. Its standard time zone is UTC/GMT +6:30 hours. 626 km from Yangon. Mandalay lies along the
Sagaing Fault The Sagaing Fault is a major fault in Burma, a mainly continental right-lateral transform fault between the Indian Plate and Sunda Plate. It links the divergent boundary in the Andaman Sea with the zone of active continental collision along the ...
, a
tectonic plate Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large te ...
boundary between the
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
Sunda Sunda may refer to: Europe * Sunda, Faroe Islands India * Sunda (asura), an asura brother of Upasunda * Sunda (clan), a clan (gotra) of Jats in Haryana and Rajasthan, India Southeast Asia * Sundanese (disambiguation) ** Sundanese people ...
plates. The biggest earthquake in its history, occurred on March 23 1839, an estimated magnitude 8.2 destroyed the formal capital Ava and caused extreme destruction in nearby cities. The most recent quake was a
magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...
of 7, occurred in 1956. The devastation was greatest in nearby
Sagaing Sagaing (, ) is the former capital of the Sagaing Region of Myanmar. It is located in the Irrawaddy River, to the south-west of Mandalay on the opposite bank of the river. Sagaing with numerous Buddhist monasteries is an important religious and ...
, and it came to be known as the Great Sagaing Quake. Bodies of water near Mandalay are Mandalay Kantawgyi, a small lake and
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 ...
to the west of the city.


Climate

The
rain shadow A rain shadow is an area of significantly reduced rainfall behind a mountainous region, on the side facing away from prevailing winds, known as its leeward side. Evaporated moisture from water bodies (such as oceans and large lakes) is carrie ...
of the
Arakan Mountains The Arakan Mountains ( my, ရခိုင်ရိုးမ), also known as the Rakhine Yoma, are a mountain range in western Myanmar, between the coast of Rakhine State and the Central Myanmar Basin, in which flows the Irrawaddy River. It is th ...
is so powerful that the city qualifies as having a
hot semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...
(Köppen climate classification: ''BSh''), although it does border on a
tropical wet and dry climate Tropical savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification categories ''Aw'' (for a dry winter) and ''As'' (for a dry summer). The driest month has less than of p ...
(Köppen climate classification: ''Aw''). Mandalay features noticeably warmer and cooler periods of the year. Average temperatures in January, the mildest month, hovers around while the hottest month, April, averages . Mandalay is very hot in the months of April and May, with average high temperatures easily exceeding . It is not uncommon to see high temperatures surpass during these two months in the city. Mandalay also features wet and dry seasons of nearly equal length, with the wet season running from May through October and the dry season covering the remaining six months. The highest reliably recorded temperature in Mandalay is on 24 April 1975 while the lowest is on 26 December 1999. There is considerably more
diurnal temperature variation In meteorology, diurnal temperature variation is the variation between a high air temperature and a low temperature that occurs during the same day. Temperature lag Temperature lag is an important factor in diurnal temperature variation: peak d ...
in the dry season than the wet season.


Cityscape


Around the city

*
Atumashi Monastery The Atumashi Monastery ( my, အတုမရှိကျောင်း ; formally Mahā Atulaveyan Kyaungdawgyi or ) is a Buddhist monastery located in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma). History It was built in 1857 by King Mindon, two years afte ...
: The "Atumashi
kyaung A ''kyaung'' (, ) is a monastery ( vihara), comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Buddhist monks. Burmese ''kyaungs'' are sometimes also occupied by novice monks (samanera), lay attendants (''kappiya''), nuns (''thilashin''), and you ...
", literally means "inimitable vihara", is also one of the well known sights. The original structure was destroyed by a fire in 1890 though the masonry plinth survived. The reconstruction project was started by the government on 2 May 1995 and completed in June 1996. * Buddha's Replica Tooth Relic Pagoda: One of the Buddha's Sacred Replica Tooth Relics was enshrined in the Mandalay Swedaw Pagoda on Maha Dhammayanthi Hill in
Amarapura Amarapura ( my, အမရပူရ, MLCTS=a. ma. ra. pu ra., , ; also spelt as Ummerapoora) is a former capital of Myanmar, and now a township of Mandalay city. Amarapura is bounded by the Irrawaddy river in the west, Chanmyathazi Township in t ...
Township. The pagoda was built with cash donations contributed by the peoples of Burma and Buddhist donors from around the world under the supervision of the State Peace and Development Council. The authorities and donors hoisted Buddha's Replica Tooth Relic Pagoda Mandalay's ''Shwe Htidaw'' (sacred golden umbrella), ''Hngetmyatnadaw'' (sacred bird perch vane) and ''Seinhpudaw'' (sacred diamond bud) on 13 December 1996. *
Kuthodaw Pagoda Kuthodaw Pagoda ( my, ကုသိုလ်တော်‌ဘုရား, ; literally ''Royal Merit'', and formally titled Mahalawka Marazein ) is a Buddhist stupa, located in Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), that contains the world's largest book. ...
(The World's Biggest Book): Built by King Mindon in 1857, this pagoda modeled on the
Shwezigon Pagoda The Shwezigon Pagoda or Shwezigon Paya ( my-Mymr, ရွှေစည်းခုံဘုရား ) is a Buddhist stupa located in Nyaung-U, Myanmar. A prototype of Burmese stupas, it consists of a circular gold leaf-gilded stupa surrounded b ...
at
Nyaung-U Nyaung-U ( my, ညောင်ဦးမြို့) is the administrative town of Nyaung-U Township of Nyaung-U District in the Mandalay Region of central Myanmar. It lies on the eastern bank of Ayeyarwaddy River. It is just 4 kilometers away ...
, is surrounded by 729 upright stone slabs on which are inscribed the entire ''
Tipiṭaka The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school. During t ...
'' as edited and approved by the
Fifth Buddhist council The Fifth Buddhist Council ( my, ပဉ္စမသင်္ဂါယနာ; pi, Pañcamasaṃgāyanā) took place in Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar) in 1871 CE under the auspices of King Mindon of Burma (Myanmar). The chief objective of this meeting ...
. It is popularly known as " World's largest book" for its stone scriptures. * Kyauktawgyi Pagoda: Near the southern approach to Mandalay Hill stands the Kyauktawgyi Buddha image built by King Mindon in 1853–78. The Image was carved out of a huge single block of marble. Statues of 80
arahants In Buddhism, an ''arhat'' (Sanskrit: अर्हत्) or ''arahant'' (Pali: अरहन्त्, 𑀅𑀭𑀳𑀦𑁆𑀢𑁆) is one who has gained insight into the true nature of existence and has achieved ''Nirvana'' and liberated ...
are assembled around the Image, twenty on each side. The carving was completed in 1865. * Mahamuni Buddha Temple: The image of Gautama Buddha at Mahamuni Buddha Temple is said to have been cast in the life-time of the Gautama Buddha and that the Buddha embraced it seven times, thereby bringing it to life. Consequently, devout Buddhists hold it to be alive and refer to it as the Mahamuni Sacred Living Image. Revered as the holiest pagoda in Mandalay, It was built by King
Bodawpaya Bodawpaya ( my, ဘိုးတော်ဘုရား, ; th, ปดุง; 11 March 1745 – 5 June 1819) was the sixth king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma. Born Maung Shwe Waing and later Badon Min, he was the fourth son of Alaungpaya, fou ...
in 1784. The image in a sitting posture is 12 feet and 7 inches (3.8 m) high. As the image was brought from
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 ...
, it was also called the Great Rakhine Buddha. The early morning ritual of washing the Face of Buddha Image draws a large crowd of devotees every day. The Great Image is also considered as the greatest in Burma next to
Shwedagon Pagoda The Shwedagon Pagoda (, ); mnw, ကျာ်ဒဂုၚ်; officially named ''Shwedagon Zedi Daw'' ( my, ရွှေတိဂုံစေတီတော်, , ) and also known as the Great Dagon Pagoda and the Golden Pagoda is a gilded stupa ...
. *
Mandalay Hill Mandalay Hill ( ) is a hill that is located to the northeast of the city centre of Mandalay in Myanmar. The city took its name from the hill. Mandalay Hill is known for its abundance of pagodas and monasteries, and has been a major pilgrimage s ...
: The hill has for long been a holy mount. Legend has it that the Buddha, on his visit, had prophesied that a great city would be founded at its foot. Mandalay Hill, 230 metres high, provides a view of the city and surrounding countryside. The construction of a motor road to reach the hill-top has already been finished. *
Mandalay Palace The Mandalay Palace ( my, မန္တလေး နန်းတော်, ), located in Mandalay, Myanmar, is the last royal palace of the last Burmese monarchy. The palace was constructed between 1857 and 1859 as part of King Mindon's founding ...
: The whole palace complex was destroyed by a fire during World War II. The palace walls, the city gates with their crowning wooden pavilions and the surrounding moat, "Mya-nan-san-kyaw Shwenandaw", were rebuilt using forced labor. A model of the Mandalay Palace, Nanmyint-saung and Mandalay Cultural Museum are located inside the Palace grounds. *
Shwenandaw Monastery Shwenandaw Monastery (, ; lit. "Golden Palace Monastery") is a historic Buddhist monastery located near Mandalay Hill, Mandalay Region, Myanmar (formerly Burma). Shwenandaw Monastery was built in 1878 by King Thibaw Min, who dismantled and rel ...
: known for its wood carvings, it was a part of the old palace. In 1880 it was moved by King Thibaw to its current site close to Atumashi Monastery. *
U Bein Bridge U Bein Bridge ( my, ဦးပိန် တံတား) is a crossing that spans the Taungthaman Lake near Amarapura in Myanmar. The bridge was built around 1850 and is believed to be the oldest and (once) longest teakwood bridge in the world. ...
: known for the oldest and (once) longest teakwood bridge in the world. It was constructed when the capital of Ava Kingdom moved to Amarapura . *
Yadanabon Zoological Gardens The Yadanabon Zoological Gardens ( my, ရတနာပုံ တိရိစ္ဆာန် ဥယျာဉ် ) is a zoo in Mandalay, Myanmar. The zoo has nearly 300 animals, including tigers, leopards and elephants, and plays a major part in t ...
: A small zoo between the
Mandalay Palace The Mandalay Palace ( my, မန္တလေး နန်းတော်, ), located in Mandalay, Myanmar, is the last royal palace of the last Burmese monarchy. The palace was constructed between 1857 and 1859 as part of King Mindon's founding ...
and
Mandalay Hill Mandalay Hill ( ) is a hill that is located to the northeast of the city centre of Mandalay in Myanmar. The city took its name from the hill. Mandalay Hill is known for its abundance of pagodas and monasteries, and has been a major pilgrimage s ...
. It has over 300 species and is notably the only zoo to have
Burmese roofed turtle The Burmese roofed turtle (''Batagur trivittata'') is one of six turtle species in the genus ''Batagur'' of the family Geoemydidae. It is a freshwater turtle endemic to Myanmar and was thought to be extinct until rediscovered in 2002. Less than i ...
s.


Administration

The
Mandalay Region Government Mandalay Region Government is the cabinet of Mandalay Region. The cabinet is led by chief minister, Maung Ko Cabinet (2021 - current) Cabinet (2016–2021) Cabinet(2011-2016) The former Development Affairs minister is Phone Zaw Han w ...
is the government for Mandalay Region including Mandalay City. The
Mandalay City Development Committee The Mandalay City Development Committee ( my, မန္တလေးမြို့ စည်ပင်သာယာရေး ကော်မတီ; abbreviated MCDC) is the administrative body of Mandalay, the second largest city in Myanmar (Burma) ...
(MCDC) is municipal organization for Mandalay City. The
Mandalay District Mandalay District ( my, မန္တလေး ခရိုင်) is a district of the Mandalay Division in central Myanmar. Though the district used to consist of two cities, Mandalay and Amarapura, today, with the urban sprawl of Mandalay captu ...
consists of seven townships. *
Amarapura Amarapura ( my, အမရပူရ, MLCTS=a. ma. ra. pu ra., , ; also spelt as Ummerapoora) is a former capital of Myanmar, and now a township of Mandalay city. Amarapura is bounded by the Irrawaddy river in the west, Chanmyathazi Township in t ...
* Aungmyethazan * Chanayethazan (city centre) * Chanmyathazi * Maha Aungmye *
Patheingyi Patheingyi is a town in the Mandalay Region of central Myanmar. References External linksSatellite map at Maplandia.com
Populated places in Mandalay Region {{Mandalay-geo-stub ...
* Pyigyidagun


Transport

Mandalay's strategic location in Central Burma makes it an important hub for transport of people and goods. The city is connected to other parts of the country and to China and India by multiple modes of transportation.


Air

Mandalay International Airport Mandalay International Airport ( my, မန္တလေး အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ လေဆိပ်; ), located 35 km south of Mandalay in Tada-U, is one of three international airports in Myanmar. Completed in ...
(MDL) was one of the largest and most modern airports in Myanmar until the modernization of
Yangon International Airport Yangon International Airport ( ) is the primary and busiest international airport of Myanmar. The airport is located in Mingaladon, north of central Yangon. All ten Myanmar carriers and about 30 international airlines operate at Yangon Intern ...
in 2008. Built at a cost of US$150 million in 2000, it is highly underused; it serves mostly domestic flights with the exception of those 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 ...
and to/from
Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...
and Chiang Mai, with daily flights on Air Asia and Bangkok Airways. The airport has come to represent the military regime's propensity for bad planning and penchant for
white elephant A white elephant is a possession that its owner cannot dispose of, and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. In modern usage, it is a metaphor used to describe an object, construction project, sch ...
projects. Myanmar's recent opening stance on tourism means the airport is now receiving a growing number of visitors from Bangkok and Chiang Mai. The airport is far from the city, on a modern highway. Before the construction of this airport, Mandalay Chanmyathazi Airport was the main airport of the city. The airport serves some flights to Myanmar towns.


River

The
Ayeyarwady 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 ...
remains an important arterial route for transporting goods such as farm produce including rice, beans and pulses, cooking oil, pottery, bamboo and teak.


Rail

Mandalay Central Railway Station is the terminus of
Myanmar Railways Rail transport in Myanmar consists of a railway network with 960 stations. The network, generally spanning north to south with branch lines to the east and west, is the second largest in Southeast Asia, and includes the Yangon Circular Railway ...
's main rail line 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 the starting point of branch lines to
Pyin U Lwin Pyin Oo Lwin or Pyin U Lwin (, ; Shan: ), formerly and colloquially referred to as Maymyo (), is a scenic hill town in the Mandalay Region, Myanmar, some east of Mandalay, and at an elevation of . The town was estimated to have a population of ...
(Maymyo),
Lashio Lashio ( ; Shan: ) is the largest town in northern Shan State, Myanmar, about north-east of Mandalay. It is situated on a low mountain spur overlooking the valley of the Yaw River. Loi Leng, the highest mountain of the Shan Hills, is located ...
,
Monywa Monywa (; ) is the largest city in Sagaing Region, Myanmar, located north-west of Mandalay on the eastern bank of the River Chindwin. Monywa is one of the largest economic cities in Myanmar. It is also known as Neem city because many of the cit ...
,
Pakokku Pakokku ( my, ပခုက္ကူမြို့, ) is the largest city in the Magway Region of Myanmar. It is situated about 30 km north-east of Bagan on the Irrawaddy River. It is the administration seat of Pakokku Township , Pakokku Distric ...
,
Kalay Kalay ( my, ကလေး), also known as Kale, is a town in the Sagaing Region of Myanmar. It is located upstream from Mandalay and Monywa on the Myittha River, a tributary of the Chindwin River. The town is the district headquarters of the Kalay ...
,
Gangaw Gangaw ( my, ဂန့်ဂေါမြို့, ) is a town of Gangaw Township in Gangaw District in the Magway Division in Myanmar. Gangaw is also known as the City of Yaw, a certain region in Myanmar including Gangaw (), Tilin (), Saw () an ...
, and to the north,
Shwebo Shwebo ( my, ရွှေဘိုမြို့ ) is a city in Sagaing Region, Burma, 110 km north-west of Mandalay between the Irrawaddy and the Mu rivers. The city was the origin of the Konbaung Dynasty, established by King Alaungpaya ...
,
Kawlin Kawlin (ကောလင်းမြို့) is a town in the Sagaing Division in Myanmar. (page 43 in part B of volume 1 in the pdf file) Since December 2018 it has been the administration headquarters for Kawlin District as well as Kawlin Townsh ...
, Naba,
Kanbalu Kanbalu (also spelt Kantbalu
Myanmar's NET
) is a town in Mohnyin Mohnyin ( my, မိုးညှင်း, ; Shan:မိူင်းယၢင်း) is a town in Kachin State, Myanmar. It is the administrative center for both Mohnyin Township and Mohnyin District and it has a population of 33,290. History T ...
,
Hopin Hopin ( my, ဟိုပင်မြို့; shn, ဝဵင်းႁူဝ်ပၢင်ႇ; also Hobin) is a town in Mohnyin Township, Kachin State, in north-east Myanmar. It is situated on the main Mandalay – Myitkyina railway line, 7 ...
,
Mogaung Mogaung ( my, မိုးကောင်း ; ( Shan: မိူင်းၵွင်း) is a town in Kachin State, Myanmar. It is situated on the Mandalay-Myitkyina railway line. History Mogaung or Möngkawng was the name and capital (roya ...
and
Myitkyina Myitkyina (, ; (Eng; ''mitchinar'') Jinghpaw: ''Myitkyina'', ) is the capital city of Kachin State in Myanmar (Burma), located from Yangon, and from Mandalay. In Burmese it means "near the big river", and Myitkyina is on the west bank of the ...
. Mandalay does not have an intra-city metro rail system. The former Trams in Mandalay has been decommissioned.


Roads

Mandalay literally is at the center of Burma's road network. The highway network includes roads towards: * Upper Burma and China—Mandalay–
Tagaung Tagaung is a town in Mandalay Region of Myanmar (Burma). It is situated on the east bank of the Ayeyarwady River, 127 miles north of Mandalay. Etymology "Tagaung" derives from the Shan language term "Takawng" ( shn, တႃႈၵွင်; ), wh ...
Bhamo Bhamo ( my, ဗန်းမော်မြို့ ''ban: mau mrui.'', also spelt Banmaw; shn, မၢၼ်ႈမူဝ်ႇ; tdd, ᥛᥫᥒᥰ ᥛᥨᥝᥱ; zh, 新街, Hsinkai) is a city in Kachin State in northern Myanmar, south of the ...
Myitkyina Myitkyina (, ; (Eng; ''mitchinar'') Jinghpaw: ''Myitkyina'', ) is the capital city of Kachin State in Myanmar (Burma), located from Yangon, and from Mandalay. In Burmese it means "near the big river", and Myitkyina is on the west bank of the ...
Road, Mandalay–Mogok–SiU–Bhamo Road, Mandalay–Lashio–
Muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...
Road (part of
Asian Highway The Asian Highway Network (AH), also known as the Great Asian Highway, is a cooperative project among countries in Asia and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) to improve their connectivity via hig ...
route 14 or AH14) * Western Burma and India—Mandalay–
Sagaing Sagaing (, ) is the former capital of the Sagaing Region of Myanmar. It is located in the Irrawaddy River, to the south-west of Mandalay on the opposite bank of the river. Sagaing with numerous Buddhist monasteries is an important religious and ...
Monywa Monywa (; ) is the largest city in Sagaing Region, Myanmar, located north-west of Mandalay on the eastern bank of the River Chindwin. Monywa is one of the largest economic cities in Myanmar. It is also known as Neem city because many of the cit ...
Kalewa Kalewa is a town at the confluence of the Chindwin River and the Myittha River in Kale District, Sagaing Region of north-western Myanmar. It is the administrative seat of Kalewa Township. Climate Kalewa has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen c ...
Tamu Tamu may refer to: * Texas A&M University or TAMU * Tamu, Myanmar ** Tamu District, Myanmar ** Tamu Township * Ta'mu, rice cooked in woven coconut leaves from the Philippines * Tamu Massif, an inactive underwater volcano in the Pacific * '' Helio ...
Road * Lower Burma– Yangon-Mandalay Expressway and
AH1 Asian Highway 1 (AH1) is the longest route of the Asian Highway Network, running from Tokyo, Japan via Korea, China, Southeast Asia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran to the border between Turkey and Bulgaria west of Istanbul ...
Most stretches of these highways are one-lane roads in poor condition.


Buses and cars

As the government allows only a few thousands of vehicles to be imported each year, motor transportation in Burma is highly expensive for most of its citizens. Most people rely on
bicycles A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. Bic ...
,
motorcycles A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruising, ...
and/or private and public
buses A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
to get around. Back in the 2000s, the most popular car in Mandalay was the 1982/83
Nissan Sunny The is an automobile built by the Japanese automaker Nissan from 1966 to 2006. In the early 1980s, the brand changed from Datsun to Nissan in line with other models by the company. Although production of the Sunny in Japan ended in 2006, the na ...
pickup truck A pickup truck or pickup is a light-duty truck that has an enclosed cabin, and a back end made up of a cargo bed that is enclosed by three low walls with no roof (this cargo bed back end sometimes consists of a tailgate and removable covering) ...
. Because of its utility as a private bus or taxi, the two-and-a-half-decade old model still had strong demand and heady prices to match—from K10 million to K14 million (US$8,000 to US$11,000) in mid-2008. To get around severe import limits, people of Mandalay had turned to illegally imported and hence unregistered (called "without" in Burmese English) motorcycles and cars despite the government's periodic confiscation sprees then. In March 2008, Mandalay had nearly 81,000 registered motor vehicles plus an unknown number of unregistered vehicles. Although the number of cars in a city of one million is low, traffic in Mandalay is highly chaotic as thousands of bicycles and (unregistered) motorbikes freely roam around all the lanes of the streets. Unlike in Yangon where motorbikes,
cycle rickshaw The cycle rickshaw is a small-scale local means of transport. It is a type of hatchback tricycle designed to carry passengers on a for-hire basis. It is also known by a variety of other names such as bike taxi, velotaxi, pedicab, bikecab ...
s and bicycles are prohibited from entering downtown and busy areas, in Mandalay it is anything goes. In 2018, as part of Mandalay Smart City initiatives, new traffic lights with internet-connected sensors have been installed by Mandalay City Development Committee to manage traffic at junctions.


Demographics

A 2007 estimate by the UN puts Mandalay's population at nearly 1 million. The city's population is projected to reach nearly 1.5 million by 2025. While Mandalay has traditionally been the bastion of
Bamar The Bamar (, ; also known as the Burmans) are a Sino-Tibetan ethnic group native to Myanmar (formerly Burma) in Southeast Asia. With approximately 35 million people, the Bamar make up the largest ethnic group in Myanmar, constituting 68% of th ...
(Burman) culture and populace, the massive influx of illegal ethnic Han Chinese in the last 20 years has effectively influenced the ethnic Bamar majority there. Although many native ethnic
Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...
could not get Burmese citizenship, the foreign-born
Yunnanese Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in 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 Kunming. The province borders the ...
can easily obtain Burmese
citizenship Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
cards on the black market.
Ludu Daw Amar ''Ludu'' Daw Amar (also Ludu Daw Ah Mar; my, လူထုဒေါ်အမာ, ; 29 November 1915 – 7 April 2008) was a well known and respected leading dissident writer and journalist in Mandalay, Burma. She was married to fellow writer ...
of Mandalay, the native journalist had said it felt like "an undeclared colony of
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 ...
". Today, the percentage of ethnic Han Chinese, estimated at 50% of the city (with the
Yunnanese Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in 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 Kunming. The province borders the ...
forming an estimated 30% of Mandalay's population), is believed to be nearly the same as that of the ethnic Bamar. A sizable community of Indian immigrants (mostly
Tamils The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar ( ta, தமிழர், Tamiḻar, translit-std=ISO, in the singular or ta, தமிழர்கள், Tamiḻarkaḷ, translit-std=ISO, label=none, in the plural), or simply Tamils (), are a Drav ...
) also resides in Mandalay. Burmese is the principal language of the city, while
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
is increasingly heard in the city's commerce centers as the second language.
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
is the third language, only known by some urban people.


Culture

Mandalay is Burma's cultural and religious center of Buddhism, having numerous monasteries and more than 700 
pagodas A pagoda is an Asian tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist but sometimes Taoist, ...
. At the foot of
Mandalay Hill Mandalay Hill ( ) is a hill that is located to the northeast of the city centre of Mandalay in Myanmar. The city took its name from the hill. Mandalay Hill is known for its abundance of pagodas and monasteries, and has been a major pilgrimage s ...
sits the world's official " Buddhist Bible", also known as the world's largest book, in
Kuthodaw Pagoda Kuthodaw Pagoda ( my, ကုသိုလ်တော်‌ဘုရား, ; literally ''Royal Merit'', and formally titled Mahalawka Marazein ) is a Buddhist stupa, located in Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), that contains the world's largest book. ...
. The styles of Mandalay Buddha Images and Buddha Statues were many since King Mandon, who was a devout Buddhist, and had filled Mandalay with them and through the years Mandalay Buddhist art became established as the pure art of Myanmar. There are 729 slabs of stone that together are inscribed with the entire
Pāli Canon The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school. During th ...
, each housed in its own white
stupa A stupa ( sa, स्तूप, lit=heap, ) is a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics (such as ''śarīra'' – typically the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns) that is used as a place of meditation. In Buddhism, circumamb ...
. The buildings inside the old Mandalay city walls, surrounded by a moat, which was repaired in recent times using prison labor, comprise the
Mandalay Palace The Mandalay Palace ( my, မန္တလေး နန်းတော်, ), located in Mandalay, Myanmar, is the last royal palace of the last Burmese monarchy. The palace was constructed between 1857 and 1859 as part of King Mindon's founding ...
, mostly destroyed 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 ...
. İt is now replaced by a replica, military Prison and a military garrison, the headquarters of the Central Military Command.


Media

Much of the media in Mandalay – like elsewhere in Burma – comes from Yangon. The city's non-satellite
TV programming Broadcast programming is the practice of organizing or ordering (scheduling) of broadcast media shows, typically radio and television, in a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or season-long schedule. Modern broadcasters use broadcast automati ...
comes from Yangon-based state-run
TV Myanmar Television broadcasting in Myanmar began in 1979 as a test trial in Yangon. The first television service BBS was launched on 3 June 1980, followed by regular service in 1981. Most television networks in the country are broadcast from Yangon. MRTV a ...
and military-run
Myawaddy Myawaddy ( Phlone ;myမဝတဳ my, မြဝတီ; th, เมียวดี; ; ) is a town in southeastern Myanmar, in Kayin State, close to the border with Thailand. Separated from the Thai border town of Mae Sot by the Moei River (Thaun ...
, both of which provide
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 ...
news and entertainment. Since December 2006,
MRTV Myanmar Radio and Television ( my, မြန်မာ့အသံနှင့်ရုပ်မြင်သံကြား, abbreviated MRTV), formerly the Burma Broadcasting Service (BBS), is the parent of the state-run Myanmar Radio National ...
-4, formerly a paid channel, has also been available in Mandalay. Mandalay has two radio stations.
Naypyidaw Naypyidaw, officially spelled Nay Pyi Taw (; ), is the capital and third-largest city of Myanmar. The city is located at the centre of the Naypyidaw Union Territory. It is unusual among Myanmar's cities, as it is an entirely planned city outs ...
-based
Myanmar Radio National Service Myanmar Radio National Service ( my, မြန်မာ့အသံ; formerly, Burma Broadcasting Service (BBS)), is the national radio service of Myanmar. It has its broadcasting headquarters in both the administrative capital of Naypyidaw and ...
is the national radio service and broadcasts mostly in Burmese (and in English during specific times.) Semi-state-run
Mandalay City FM Mandalay FM is a radio station that serves the Mandalay metropolitan area (90 miles around Mandalay), broadcasting on the FM band at a frequency of 87.9 MHz and on the Internet. Now the radio station is also serving around Taungoo and around Ya ...
(87.9FM) is the Mandalay metropolitan area's
pop culture Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * Pop (Gas al ...
oriented station. The military government, which controls all daily newspapers in Burma, uses Mandalay to publish and distribute its three
national newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports an ...
s, the Burmese language ''
Myanmar Alin Myanmar Alin ( my, မြန်မာ့အလင်း; also known as Myanma Alinn) is a state-run Burmese language daily newspaper and the longest running newspaper in circulation in Myanmar. The daily is considered to be the official mouthpiece ...
'' and ''
Kyemon ''Kyemon'' ( my, ကြေးမုံ; also known as Kyaymon) (''The Mirror'') is a state-owned Burmese language daily newspaper based in Yangon, Myanmar. Along with ''Myanmar Alin'', Kyemon is one of two Burmese language national newspapers in t ...
'' and the English language ''
New Light of Myanmar ''The New Light of Myanmar'' (, ; formerly ''The New Light of Burma'') is a government-owned newspaper published by the Ministry of Information and based in Yangon, Myanmar. ''The New Light of Myanmar'' is often viewed as propaganda on part of t ...
''. The state-run '' Yadanabon'' is published in Mandalay and serves the Upper Burma market. The ''Mandalay Daily'' newspaper is published by Mandalay City Development Committee since 30 November 1997.


Sports

Mandalay's sporting facilities are quite poor by international standards but are still the best in Upper Burma. The 17,000 seat
Bahtoo Stadium Bahtoo Memorial Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, located in downtown Mandalay, Myanmar. Its address is the corner of 71sr st and 30th st beside of the Bahtoo Sport Centre. Overview Named after revolutionary Colonel Bahtoo, the 17,000 seat ...
was the largest in Upper Myanmar before the construction of
Mandalarthiri Stadium Mandalar Thiri Stadium ( my, မန္တလာသီရိ အားကစားကွင်း) is a multi-use stadium, located in Mandalay, Myanmar. It located east of the Mingalar Mandalay. Its address is between 68th and 73rd, between 102A ...
and hosts mainly local and regional association football and track-and-field tournaments. Since May 2009, professional football has arrived in Mandalay, with
Yadanabon FC Yadanarbon Football Club ( my, ရတနာပုံ ဘောလုံး အသင်း ) is a Burmese professional football club based at the Bahtoo Stadium in Mandalay. The club was a founding member of the Myanmar National League in 2009. ...
representing the city in the newly formed
Myanmar National League The MPT Myanmar National League ( my, မြန်မာ နေရှင်နယ် လိဂ်; abbreviated MNL) is the premier national professional football league of Myanmar. In 2009, the league replaced the Myanmar Premier League, which co ...
, the country's first professional football league. In 2013, a new stadium,
Mandalarthiri Stadium Mandalar Thiri Stadium ( my, မန္တလာသီရိ အားကစားကွင်း) is a multi-use stadium, located in Mandalay, Myanmar. It located east of the Mingalar Mandalay. Its address is between 68th and 73rd, between 102A ...
was built to host the Women Football matches of 27th SEA Games and became the largest stadium in Mandalay and Upper Myanmar.


Sport climbing

At Waterfall Hill, the first bolted rock climbing site in Myanmar have been developed with the help of Mandalay climbers led by Steve, Tylor and Technical Climbing Club of Myanmar since 2010.


Economy

Mandalay is the major trading and communications center for northern and central
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 ...
. Much of Burmese external trade to China and India goes through Mandalay. Among the leading traditional industries are silk weaving,
tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...
,
jade Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group of ...
cutting and polishing, stone and wood carving, making marble and bronze Buddha images, temple ornaments and paraphernalia, the working of gold leaves and of silver, the manufacture of matches, brewing and distilling. Chinese immigrants have increasingly dominated Mandalay's economy since the imposition of sanctions by the United States and the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
in the 1990s.


Education

Mandalay has the best educational facilities and institutions, after Yangon, in Burma where state spending on education is among the lowest in the world. Students in poor districts routinely drop out in middle school as schools have to rely on forced "donations" and various fees from parents for nearly everything – school maintenance to teachers' salaries. Many wealthy Mandalay parents enroll their children in the city's English language private schools for primary and secondary education and Chinese and Singaporean universities for university education. Some wealthy Chinese families also send their children to "cram schools" where students study for entrance exams into Chinese universities from 6am to 8am, then to government high schools from 9am to 3pm, and finally preparation classes for Singapore GCE O levels from 4pm to 9pm. For the rest of the students who cannot afford to go abroad for studies, Mandalay offers Upper Burma's best institutions of higher education. There are over 15 universities including Sasana University. The city's
University of Mandalay Mandalay University (also translated as University of Mandalay; my, မန္တလေးတက္ကသိုလ် ) is a public liberal arts and science university located in Mandalay, Myanmar and one of the sixteen autonomous universities un ...
,
University of Medicine, Mandalay The University of Medicine, Mandalay ( my, ဆေးတက္ကသိုလ် (မန္တလေး), ; formerly Institute of Medicine, Mandalay), located in Mandalay is one of five medical universities in Myanmar. The university offers Bachelo ...
,
University of Dental Medicine, Mandalay ) , established = , location = 62nd Street, Chanmyathazi, Mandalay, Myanmar , coordinates = , type = Public , administrative_staff = 196/263 , rector = Ko Ko (academic) , prorector ...
,
Mandalay Technological University Mandalay Technological University (MTU) ( my, မန္တလေး နည်းပညာ တက္ကသိုလ်, , formerly, the Mandalay Institute of Technology - MIT), in Patheingyi, Mandalay, is a senior prestigious engineering universi ...
and University of Computer Studies, Mandalay are among the nation's most selective universities.


Health care

The general state of health care in Burma is poor. The military government spends anywhere from 0.5% to 3% of the country's GDP on health care, consistently ranking among the lowest in the world. In 2005, the public health care system of
Mandalay Region Mandalay Region ( my, မန္တလေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Mandalay Division) is an administrative divisions of Myanmar, administrative division of Myanmar. It is located in the center of the country, bordering ...
with over 7.6 million people consisted of slightly over 1000 doctors and about 2000 nurses working in 44 hospitals and 44 health clinics. Over 30 of the so-called hospitals had less than 100 beds. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals lack many of the basic facilities and equipment. Nonetheless Mandalay remains the main health care center for Upper Burma as almost all of large public hospitals and private hospitals are in Mandalay. The city has ten public hospitals and one hospital specializing in traditional Burmese medicine. For a semblance of adequate health care, the well-to-do from Upper Burma go to private hospitals and clinics in Mandalay. For more advanced treatments, they have to go to Yangon or abroad. The wealthy Burmese routinely go abroad (usually
Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...
or Singapore) for treatment.


Twin towns – sister cities

Mandalay is twinned with: *
Cirebon Cirebon (, formerly rendered Cheribon or Chirebon in English) is a port city on the northern coast of the Indonesian island of Java. It is the only coastal city of West Java, located about 40 km west of the provincial border with Central Java ...
, Indonesia *
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 ...
, China *
Phnom Penh Phnom Penh (; km, ភ្នំពេញ, ) is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, indus ...
, Cambodia *
Ulsan Ulsan (), officially the Ulsan Metropolitan City is South Korea's seventh-largest metropolitan city and the eighth-largest city overall, with a population of over 1.1 million inhabitants. It is located in the south-east of the country, neighboring ...
, South Korea


Mandalay in popular culture

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...
wrote a poem called "
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 ...
" (1890), which is the origin of the phrase "on the road to Mandalay". In 1907, the poem was set to music by
Oley Speaks Oley Speaks (June 28, 1874 – August 7, 1948) was an American composer and songwriter.Oley Speaks at IMDb https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1672696/bio His compositions include many religious songs, as well as his best-known success, " On the Road to ...
as '' On the Road to Mandalay''. Speaks' version was widely recorded. Among the best known renditions is the one by
Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...
on '' Come Fly With Me''.
Bithia Mary Croker Bithia Mary (or May) Croker (née Sheppard, c. 1848 or 1849 – 20 October 1920) was an Irish novelist, most of whose work concerns life and society in British India. Her 1917 novel ''The Road to Mandalay'', set in Burma, was the uncredited basis ...
wrote a novel in 1917, ''The Road to Mandalay'', which was the uncredited basis for a 1926 American silent
film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
. Of this, only excerpts survive. A further film of the same name was directed by
Midi Z Zhao Te-yin (; born 18 December 1982), also known as Midi Z, is a Myanmar-born Taiwanese film director. His 2014 film ''Ice Poison'' was selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards. On November 7, ...
in 2016. The large hotel/casino/convention center
Mandalay Bay Mandalay Bay is a 43-story luxury resort and casino at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It is owned by Vici Properties and The Blackstone Group and operated by MGM Resorts International. It was developed by Circus Circus ...
in
Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
is named for the city, despite the fact that the city is 500 kilometers from the nearest bay, perhaps in reference to the line in Kipling's poem, "An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay! "
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
was stationed at Mandalay for a time while working for the
Indian Imperial Police The Indian Imperial Police, referred to variously as the Imperial Police or simply the Indian Police or, by 1905, Imperial Police, was part of the Indian Police Services, the uniform system of police administration in British Raj, as established by ...
in Burma, and his first novel, ''
Burmese Days ''Burmese Days'' is the first novel by English writer George Orwell, published in 1934. Set in British Burma during the waning days of empire, when Burma was ruled from Delhi as part of British India, the novel serves as "a portrait of the dar ...
'' (1934), was based on his experiences in Burma. He also wrote a number of short non-fiction essays and short stories about Burma, such as "
A Hanging A Hanging (1931) is a short essay written by George Orwell, first published in August 1931 in the British literary magazine '' The Adelphi''. Set in Burma, where Orwell (under his real name of Eric Arthur Blair) had served in the British Imperial P ...
" (1931) and "
Shooting an Elephant "Shooting an Elephant" is an essay by British writer George Orwell, first published in the literary magazine ''New Writing'' in late 1936 and broadcast by the BBC Home Service on 12 October 1948. The essay describes the experience of the English ...
" (1936).
John Masters Lieutenant Colonel John Masters, DSO, OBE (26 October 1914 – 7 May 1983) was a British novelist and regular officer of the Indian Army. In World War II, he served with the Chindits behind enemy lines in Burma, and became the GSO1 (chief st ...
wrote a book about his wartime experiences in Burma called ''The Road Past Mandalay'' (1961). In the animated series, ''
Nellie the Elephant "Nellie the Elephant" is a children's song written in 1956 by Ralph Butler and Peter Hart about a fictional anthropomorphic elephant of that name. Original version The original version, released on Parlophone R 4219 in October 1956, was recorde ...
'', the main protagonist of the series is on a journey to return to her home in Mandalay after leaving the circus. The American film studio ''
Mandalay Pictures Mandalay Pictures or Mandalay Vision is an American film production company founded on May 27, 1995, which is part of producer and businessman Peter Guber's Mandalay Entertainment. From 1997 until 2002, Lionsgate Entertainment owned a stake in M ...
'' is named after the city. The logo also features a tiger, which is often seen roaming around the city. British pop singer
Robbie Williams Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...
sang a song called
Eternity/The Road to Mandalay "Eternity" / "The Road to Mandalay" is the fifth single from English singer-songwriter Robbie Williams' third studio album, ''Sing When You're Winning'' (2000). "Eternity" does not appear on the album but was later included on Williams' ''Great ...
which was released as a single in 2001.


Notable people

*
Saw Maung Saw Maung ( my, စောမောင်, ; 5 December 1928 – 24 July 1997) was a Burmese army general and statesman who served as Chairman of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in Myanmar and Prime Minister of Burma from 19 ...
(1928-1997), Burmese general, chairman of
State Law and Order Restoration Council State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
* Zwe Ohn Chein (1910-1979), Burmese inventor, writer and teacher


Gallery

File:Mandalay Hill, Myanmar.JPG,
Mandalay Hill Mandalay Hill ( ) is a hill that is located to the northeast of the city centre of Mandalay in Myanmar. The city took its name from the hill. Mandalay Hill is known for its abundance of pagodas and monasteries, and has been a major pilgrimage s ...
File:Maha aung mye bon zhan monastry in inwa.jpg,
Maha Aungmye Bonzan Monastery Maha Aungmye Bonzan Monastery ( my, မဟာအောင်မြေဘုံစံကျောင်း), commonly known as the Me Nu Brick Monastery ( my, မယ်နုအုတ်ကျောင်း), is a historic Buddhist monastery in In ...
in Inwa File:Mandalay-Palace-Watch-Tower.JPG, Mandalay Palace Watch Tower File:The Glass Palace of Mandalay.jpg, The Palace of Mirrors (''Hmannan'') inside Mandalay Palace File:Mahamuni.JPG,
Mahamuni Buddha The Mahamuni Buddha Temple ( my, မဟာမုနိဘုရားကြီး, ) is a Buddhist temple and major pilgrimage site, located southwest of Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma). The Mahamuni Image () is enshrined in this temple, and originally ...
, A Rakhine masterpiece File:Birmanie 0005a.jpg, A Mandalayan girl File:Mandalay-Shwe-Kyaung.JPG, Shwe Kyaung, a famous monastery File:Atumashi monastery.JPG, The
Atumashi Monastery The Atumashi Monastery ( my, အတုမရှိကျောင်း ; formally Mahā Atulaveyan Kyaungdawgyi or ) is a Buddhist monastery located in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma). History It was built in 1857 by King Mindon, two years afte ...
File:View from Sutaunppyei Pagoda.jpg, View from Sutaungpyei Pagoda in the Mandalay Hill File:MANDALAY PUENTE COLONIAL SOBRE EL RIO AYEYARWADY.jpg, Now defunct old Sagaing Bridge File:Mandalay Thingyan Rehearsal 2012.JPG, Opening Ceremony Myanmar
Thingyan Thingyan (, ; Arakanese: ; from Sanskrit '' saṁkrānti,'' which means "transit f the Sun from Pisces to Aries) is the Burmese New Year Festival that usually occurs in middle of April. Thingyan is the first ever water festival celebrated in ...
Festival in front of the City Hall File:Mandalay, Mandalay Palace, Myanmar.jpg, Great Audience Hall in
Mandalay Palace The Mandalay Palace ( my, မန္တလေး နန်းတော်, ), located in Mandalay, Myanmar, is the last royal palace of the last Burmese monarchy. The palace was constructed between 1857 and 1859 as part of King Mindon's founding ...
File:Old Myoma Thingyan.JPG, Mandalay early Thingyan Festival


See also

*
Fifth Buddhist council The Fifth Buddhist Council ( my, ပဉ္စမသင်္ဂါယနာ; pi, Pañcamasaṃgāyanā) took place in Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar) in 1871 CE under the auspices of King Mindon of Burma (Myanmar). The chief objective of this meeting ...
*
Tripiṭaka tablets at Kuthodaw Pagoda Stone tablets inscribed with the ''Tripiṭaka'' (and other Buddhist texts) stand upright in the grounds of the Kuthodaw Pagoda ( means 'royal merit') at the foot of Mandalay Hill in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma). The work was commissioned by King ...
*
Pitakataik (Mandalay) Pitakataik ( my, ပိဋကတ်တိုက်; also Pitaka-taik) was the royal library in Mandalay, commissioned by King Mindon Min in 1857 during the founding of Mandalay as a royal capital. The library was one of 7 structures built to mark ...
* Sandamuni Pagoda * Setkyathiha Pagoda * Shwekyimyin Pagoda *
Kyauktawgyi Buddha Temple (Mandalay) Kyauktawgyi Buddha Temple ( my, ကျောက်တော်ကြီးဘုရား; also known as the Great Marble Image) is a well-known Buddhist temple located near the southern entry to Mandalay Hill, Myanmar, opposite the northeastern ...
*
Shwenandaw Monastery Shwenandaw Monastery (, ; lit. "Golden Palace Monastery") is a historic Buddhist monastery located near Mandalay Hill, Mandalay Region, Myanmar (formerly Burma). Shwenandaw Monastery was built in 1878 by King Thibaw Min, who dismantled and rel ...
* State Pariyatti Sasana University, Mandalay * Sacred Heart Cathedral, Mandalay *


References


Bibliography

*


External links

*
See also nearby Pyin Oo Lwin, the historic hill station above Mandalay
*   SOAS
Mandalay Gallery with antique, colonial views of Mandalay
* ttp://www.orientalarchitecture.com/mandalay/MANDALAYMAP.htm Asian Historical Architecture – Mandalay by Prof. Robert D. Fiala, Concordia University, Nebraskabr>Mandalay Centenary Song by Than Myat Soe
MRTV Myanmar Radio and Television ( my, မြန်မာ့အသံနှင့်ရုပ်မြင်သံကြား, abbreviated MRTV), formerly the Burma Broadcasting Service (BBS), is the parent of the state-run Myanmar Radio National ...
3 {{Authority control Populated places established in 1859 Populated places in Mandalay Region Irrawaddy River Township capitals of Myanmar 1859 establishments in Burma