The Pegu Range ( my, ပဲခူးရိုးမ; Pegu Yoma or Bago Yoma) is a range of low mountains or hills
[Seekins, Donald M. (2006) ''Historical dictionary of Burma (Myanmar)'' Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland]
page 357
and uplands between the
Irrawaddy Irrawaddy may refer to:
*Irrawaddy River, the main river of Burma
*Irrawaddy Delta, a rice growing region of the country
*Ayeyarwady Region, an administrative division of Burma
*''The Irrawaddy'', a Burmese news publication based in Chiang Mai, Tha ...
and the
Sittaung River in central
Burma (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 ...
. The range runs from
Mount Popa in the north to
Singuttara Hill
Siṅguttara Hill ( my, သိင်္ဂုတ္တရကုန်းတော် ; also spelt "Theingottara Hill") is a small hill in Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Burma), crowned by the Shwedagon Pagoda, the most famous pagoda in the country.
L ...
(Theingottara Hill) in the south. Both the
Pegu River
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and the Sittaung River originate in the Pegu Range.
High points
Among the notable peaks or hilltops are high
Mount Popa, a
stratovolcano
A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with a summit crater and per ...
,
[Moore, Elizabeth H. (2007) ''Early landscapes of Myanmar'' River Books, Bangkok, page 44, ] Binhontaung ,
[topographic map, 1:250,00]
Thayetmyo, Burma, NE 46-4
Series U542, United States Army Map Service, October 1959 Kodittaung ,
Phoe-Oo Taung
and Singguttara Hill (Theingottara Hill).
Geology
The Pegu Range consists of folded and faulted
Paleogene
The Paleogene ( ; British English, also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period, geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million yea ...
marine sediments
Marine sediment, or ocean sediment, or seafloor sediment, are deposits of insoluble particles that have accumulated on the seafloor. These particles have their origins in soil and rocks and have been transported from the land to the sea, ma ...
combined with more recent
volcanics.
History
The
Shwedagon Pagoda was built sometime before 1000 A.D. on Singguttara Hill.
The Pegu Range was the original site of the 1930-1931
Saya San uprising against the
British. Saya San raised the flag of independence on Alantaung Hill near
Tharrawaddy.
Later the Pegu Range became a center for the
Communist Party of Burma.
Ecology
The northern end of the Pegu merges into the Burmese ''Dry Belt'', while in the south there is over 80 inches of rainfall a year.
[Stamp, L. Dudley (1930) "Burma: An Undeveloped Monsoon Country" ''Geographical Review'' 20(1): pp.86-109, page 105] The hills of the Pegu Range were originally heavily forested with
teak and other commercially exploitable hardwoods.
The southern forests were "ironwood forests", while the central and northern forests were teak.
[de Terra, Hellmut (1944) "Component Geographic Factors of the Natural Regions of Burma" ''Annals of the Association of American Geographers'' 34(2): pp. 67-96, page 82] Extensive logging has caused the present
deforestation and increased erosion in the area.
Notes
{{reflist
Mountain ranges of Myanmar