Pyuntaza (; also spelt Pyuntasa) is a small town located in

Nyaunglebin Township Nyaunglebin Township ( my, ညောင်လေးပင်မြို့နယ်) is a township situated in Bago District, Bago Region of Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventi ...

Bago District Bago District ( my, ပဲခူးခရိုင်) is a district of the Bago Region in central Burma (Myanmar). The region's capital, Bago, is located in the district. Bago District is bordered by Mon State to the southeast, Kayin State to the ...

Bago Region Bago Region ( my, ပဲခူးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Pegu Division and Bago Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the southern central part of the country. It is bordered by Magway Region ...

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 about from

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 ...

(formerly Pegu). The dominant ethnic group is

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 ...

, although there is a substantial number of

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 ...

. The town's main economy consists of

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

cultivation and distribution.

Etymology

The name Pyuntaza comes from the

Mon language The Mon language (, mnw, ဘာသာမန်, links=no, (Mon-Thai ဘာသာမည်) ; my, မွန်ဘာသာ; th, ภาษามอญ; formerly known as Peguan and Talaing) is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon peopl ...

term ''plaem sotchaek'' ( , ), which means "to break vows."

History

In the colonial era, Pyuntaza was administered as a township of Pegu District in

Lower Burma Lower Myanmar ( my, အောက်မြန်မာပြည်, also called Lower Burma) is a geographic region of Myanmar and includes the low-lying Irrawaddy Delta (Ayeyarwady Region, Ayeyarwady, Bago Region, Bago and Yangon Regions), as we ...

, covering an area of and consisting of 232 villages. The township's population in 1901 was 52,952 persons, having more than doubled since 1891 (23,132). The western flank of the former Pyuntaza Township is hilly, while the eastern half is a flat rice-producing area. From 1920 to 1931, with the emergence of a national railway system extending north–south, Pyuntaza emerged as a railway center town, along with neighbouring Daik-U. By rail, Pyuntaza was from

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 ...

(now Yangon). 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 ...

, prominent Burmese barrister U

Chan Htoon , image = File:U Chan Htoon.JPG , alt = , caption = , birth_name = , birth_date = Maung Maung 2008: 568 , birth_place = , death_date = , death_place = , nationality = Burmese , other_names = , known_for = ...

retreated to Pyuntaza as his place of retirement.

References

Populated places in Bago Region {{Bago-geo-stub