Kawkareik (; my, ကော့ကရိတ်, ; ksw, ဒူဖျၢ်ယၢ်ဝ့ၢ်ဖိ) also spelled as Kawkarike, is a town in Karen State,

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 ...

. It is the capital of Kawkaraik District and Kawkaraik Township.

History

The Kawkareik Pass across the

Tenasserim Hills The Tenasserim Hills or Tenasserim Range ( my, တနင်္သာရီ တောင်တန်း, ; th, ทิวเขาตะนาวศรี, , ; ms, Banjaran Tanah Seri/Banjaran Tenang Sari) is the geographical name of a r ...

is named after this town. The Pass was the access route from Thailand used by the

Japanese Fifteenth Army The was an army of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. It was involved in the invasion of Burma in December 1941 and served in that country for most of its war service. History The Japanese 15th Army was formed on November 9, 1941 ...

, consisting of two infantry divisions under Lieutenant General

Shōjirō Iida was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II. Biography Iida was a native of Yamaguchi prefecture and a graduate of the 20th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1908 and the 27th class of the Army Staff College in Decem ...

, when it invaded the southern Burmese province of Tenasserim (now Tanintharyi Region) in January 1942. In January 2009, the forces of the

Karen National Union The Karen National Union ( my, ကရင် အမျိုးသား အစည်းအရုံး; abbreviated KNU) is a political organisation with an armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), that claims to represent the Ka ...

and the

Democratic Karen Buddhist Army The Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA; my, တိုးတက်သော ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ ကရင်အမျိုးသား တပ်ဖွဲ့) was originally an insurgent group of Buddhist soldiers and officers in Mya ...

clashed outside Kawkareik. The DKBA set up their military command post inside the town, and although DKBA soldiers burned down several civilian houses and detained dozens of citizens in villages across the border in Thailand, Kawkareik was left intact.

Climate

Kawkareik has a typical southeastern Myanmar

tropical monsoon climate An area of tropical monsoon climate (occasionally known as a sub-equatorial, tropical wet climate or a tropical monsoon and trade-wind littoral climate) is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification category ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''Am'') featuring an extremely wet

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

from mid-April to early November and a

dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The te ...

from November to mid-April.

Transport

Kawkareik lies on the

East-West Economic Corridor East West (or East and West) may refer to: *East–West dichotomy, the contrast between Eastern and Western society or culture Arts and entertainment Books, journals and magazines *''East, West'', an anthology of short stories written by Salma ...

that links the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phi ...

at Da Nang to

Mawlamyine Mawlamyine (also spelled Mawlamyaing; , ; th, เมาะลำเลิง ; mnw, မတ်မလီု, ), formerly Moulmein, is the fourth-largest city in Myanmar (Burma), ''World Gazetteer'' south east of Yangon and south of Thaton, at th ...

through

Mae Sot Mae Sot ( th, แม่สอด, ; my, မဲဆောက်, ; shn, , ) is a city in western Thailand that shares a border with Myanmar to the west. It is notable as a trade hub and for its substantial population of Burmese migrants and refug ...

and

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 (Tha ...

. The town has two public high schools; BEHS (1) Kawkareik and BEHS (2) Kawkareik. There is no higher education institution in Kawkareik.

Healthcare

Kawkareik District Public Hospital serves the people of Kawkareik and its surrounding areas.

Notable people from Kawkareik

Diramore Diramore ( my, ဓီရာမိုရ်; born Maung Maung Zaw Htet; born 4 June 1974) is a Myanmar musician and prorector (training) at the National University of Arts and Culture, Mandalay. The stage name "Diramore" was given by his father ...

* Naing Thet Lwin

References

External links

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