Paletwa (, ) is one of the westernmost towns 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 Wells explai ...

, in

Chin State Chin State (, ) is a state in western Myanmar. The Chin State is bordered by Sagaing Division and Magway Division to the east, Rakhine State to the south, Bangladesh to the south-west, and the Indian states of Mizoram to the west and Ma ...

18 kilometres from the

border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

with

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. Its population in 2014 was about 97,000.

Demographics

Rakhine is the Lingua Franca of the region, while

Kuki-Chin languages The Kuki-Chin languages (also called Kuki-Chin-Mizo, Kukish or South-Central Tibeto-Burman languages) are a branch of 50 or so Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Most speakers of the ...

are spoken mostly in the hills. The west of the town hosts many refugees that have fled from Rakhine state. The literacy rate is 65% (2017). Neighboring villages such as Kan Lay (ကန်းလေ) can be reached only by foot in about an hour.

Connectivity

Paletwa is connected to the

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

only by boat. It leaves

Kyauktaw Kyauktaw ( my, ေက်ာက္ေတာ္ၿမိဳ႕ ) is a town in northern Rakhine State, in the westernmost part of Myanmar. The famous Mahamuni Buddha image was originally situated near Kyauktaw, in the ruins of the old city of Dhanya ...

every morning and reaches Paletwa in the afternoon, running up the

Kaladan River The Kaladan River ( my, ကုလားတန်မြစ်, ; also Kysapnadi, Beino, Bawinu and Kolodyne) is a river in eastern Mizoram State of India, and in Chin State and Rakhine State of western Myanmar. The Kaladan River is called the ...

. The road to Matupi is reported to be on the brink of completion Paletwa is part of an ongoing infrastructure project

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 ri ...

that will connect it to the Indian state of Mizoram.

Tourism

Despite its serene natural surroundings, tourism is under developed. The town has one hotel, but due to the restrictions on foreigners and accessibility problems for domestic tourists, tourism is almost non existent.

References

External links

Satellite map at Maplandia.com
Township capitals of Myanmar Populated places in Chin State {{Chin-geo-stub