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 relocated the administrative functions to the purpose-built capital city of Naypyidaw in north central Myanmar. With over 7 million people, Yangon is Myanmar's most populous city and its most important commercial centre.

Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in Southeast Asia, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centered around the Sule Pagoda, which is reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda – Myanmar's most sacred and famous Buddhist pagoda.

Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure, especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia, such as Jakarta, Bangkok or Hanoi. Though many historic residential and commercial buildings have been renovated throughout central Yangon, most satellite towns that ring the city continue to be profoundly impoverished and lack basic infrastructure.

Etymology

The name ''Yangon'' ( my-Mymr, ရန်ကုန်) is derived from the combination of the Burmese words () and (), which mean 'enemies' and 'run out of', respectively. This word combination can be translated as 'End of Strife'.

History

Early history

Yangon was founded as ''Dagon'' in the early 11th century () by the Mon people, who inhabited Lower Burma at that time. Dagon became an important pilgrimage pagoda town, starting in the 14th century, during the Hanthawaddy Kingdom. Notable governors of Dagon included Princess Maha Dewi, who ruled the town from 1364 to 1392, and her grandniece, Shin Saw Pu, who later became the only female queen regnant in Burmese history. Queen Saw Pu built a palace next to the Shwedagon Pagoda in the town in 1460 and spent her semi-retired life at that palace until her death in 1471.

In 1755, King Alaungpaya, the founder of the Konbaung Dynasty captured Dagon, added settlements around it, and called the enlarged town "Yangon". In the 1790s, the East India Company opened a factory in Yangon. The estimated population of Yangon in 1823 was about 30,000. The British captured Yangon during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26), but returned the city to Burmese rule after the war. The city was destroyed by a fire in 1841.

Colonial Rangoon (1852–1948)

The British captured Yangon and all of Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into the commercial and political hub of British Burma. After the war, the British moved the capital of British Burma from Moulmein (present-day Mawlamyine) to Yangon. Based on the design by army engineer Lt. Alexander Fraser, the British constructed a new city on a grid plan on delta land, bounded to the east by the Pazundaung Creek and to the south and west by the Yangon River. Yangon became the capital of all British-ruled Burma after the British had captured Upper Burma in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. By the 1890s Yangon's increasing population and commerce gave birth to prosperous residential suburbs to the north of Royal Lake (Kandawgyi) and Inya Lake. The British also established hospitals including Rangoon General Hospital and colleges including Rangoon University.

Yangon was the city where the British sent Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal emperor, to live in exile after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings and traditional wooden architecture, was known as "the garden city of the East." By the early 20th century, Yangon had public services and infrastructure on par with London.

Before World War II, about 55% of Yangon's population of 500,000 was Indian or South Asian, and only about a third was Bamar (Burman). Karens, Chinese, Anglo-Burmese and others made up the rest.

After World War I, Yangon became the center of the Burmese independence movement, with leftist Rangoon University students leading the way. Three nationwide strikes against British rule in 1920, 1936, and 1938 all began in Yangon. Yangon was under Japanese occupation (1942–45), and incurred heavy damage during World War II. The city was retaken by the Allies in May 1945. Yangon became the capital of the Union of Burma on 4 January 1948 when the country gained independence from British rule.

Contemporary Yangon (1948–present)

Soon after Burma's independence in 1948, many colonial-era names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the military junta changed the city's English name to "Yangon", along with many other changes in English transliteration of Burmese names. (The changes have not been accepted by many Burmese who consider the junta unfit to make such changes, nor by many publications and news bureaus, including, most notably, the BBC
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