Mawlamyine
Encyclopedia
Mawlamyine is the fourth largest city of Burma (Myanmar), situated 300 km south east of Yangon
and 70 km south of Thaton
, at the mouth of Thanlwin (Salween) river. The city of 500,000 is the capital and largest city of Mon State
, Myanmar
, and is the main trading center and seaport in south-eastern Burma.
name for Mawlamyine, ([mòt pəlɜ̀m]), means "damaged eye.". A Mon
king was said to have lost his powerful eye in Mawlamyine. The Burmese name "Mawlamyine" is believed to be a Burmese corruption of the Mon name.
between 1826 and 1852 after the Tanintharyi
(Tenassarim) coast, along with Arakan
, was ceded to Britain
under the Treaty of Yandabo
at the end of the First Anglo-Burmese War.
It is probably best known to English
speakers through the opening lines of Rudyard Kipling
's poem Mandalay
:
Mawlamyine is also the setting of George Orwell
's famous 1936 memoir Shooting an Elephant
.The essay opens with the striking words:
During colonial times, Moulmein had a substantial Anglo-Burmese
population; an area of the city was known as 'Little England' due to the large Anglo-Burmese community, many of them engaged in the running of rubber plantations
; however nowadays this has dwindled to all but a handful of families as most have left for the UK or Australia
.
Mawlamyine is situated in the Salween River
delta
, where the mouth of the Salween is sheltered by Bilugyun Island as it enters the Gulf of Martaban
and the Andaman Sea
. It is flanked by low hills dotted with ancient pagoda
s to the east and west.
, the longest road and rail bridge in Myanmar is the most prominent landmark
in the area. It stretches a distance of 11,000 feet over the Thanlwin river connecting the country's south eastern region with Yangon. The city is connected to Pa-an in Kayin State
and Dawei
and Myeik in Tanintharyi Division
by road. It was the rail
head to Ye
, linked to Yangon
by rail only from Mottama
(Martaban) across the river by ferry, but today connected by the new Thanlwin Bridge (Mawlamyine) opened in April 2006 .
Mawlamyine Airport has regular flights to Yangon
.
as indicated in the popular Burmese expression, "Mandalay
for the speaking, Yangon
for the bragging, and Mawlamyine for the eating".
Mawlamyine has several sawmill
s and rice mills as teak
and rice
are transported down the Salween. It was once a busy shipbuilding
center and remains an important port. The city also has a solar-powered plant for extracting salt
from seawater
and a diesel electric plant.
On the night of 1 December 2008, a fire that started from a floating restaurant
destroyed the larger of city's two market
s called the lower bazaar
.
On 27, May 2009, three bomb explosions in Mawlamyine were blamed on terrorists by the authorities; no casualties were reported.
majority. Buddhist cultural dominance is as old as Mawlamyine, but the British annexation
in the 19th century introduced Christianity, and St Patrick's School, Mawlamyine (now BEHS-5, Mawlamyine) was opened by the De La Salle Brothers
in 1860. Moreover, expansion of trade and commerce
in the early 20th century established in Mawlamyine a Hindu
culture of India
(so-called Galakhar).
The first international student
of Bucknell University
, Class of 1864, Maung Shaw Loo - born in 1839 in Moulmein - was also the first native Burmese to study in the United States
.
Yangon
Yangon is a former capital of Burma and the capital of Yangon Region . Although the military government has officially relocated the capital to Naypyidaw since March 2006, Yangon, with a population of over four million, continues to be the country's largest city and the most important commercial...
and 70 km south of Thaton
Thaton
Thaton is a town in Mon State, in southern Myanmar on the Tenasserim plains. Thaton lies along the National Highway 8 and is also connected by the National Road 85.-Etymology:...
, at the mouth of Thanlwin (Salween) river. The city of 500,000 is the capital and largest city of Mon State
Mon State
Mon State is an administrative division of Myanmar. It is sandwiched between Kayin State on the east, the Andaman Sea on the west, Bago Region on the north and Tanintharyi Region on the south, and has a short border with Thailand's Kanchanaburi Province at its south-eastern tip. The land area is...
, Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
, and is the main trading center and seaport in south-eastern Burma.
Etymology
The MonMon language
The Mon language is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon, who live in Burma and Thailand. Mon, like the related language Cambodian—but unlike most languages in Mainland Southeast Asia—is not tonal. Mon is spoken by more than a million people today. In recent years, usage of Mon has...
name for Mawlamyine, ([mòt pəlɜ̀m]), means "damaged eye.". A Mon
Mon people
The Mon are an ethnic group from Burma , living mostly in Mon State, Bago Division, the Irrawaddy Delta, and along the southern Thai–Burmese border. One of the earliest peoples to reside in Southeast Asia, the Mon were responsible for the spread of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and Thailand...
king was said to have lost his powerful eye in Mawlamyine. The Burmese name "Mawlamyine" is believed to be a Burmese corruption of the Mon name.
History
Mawlamyine was the first capital of British BurmaBritish rule in Burma
British rule in Burma lasted from 1824 to 1948, from the Anglo-Burmese Wars through the creation of Burma as a province of British India to the establishment of an independently administered colony, and finally independence...
between 1826 and 1852 after the Tanintharyi
Tanintharyi
Tanintharyi or Taninthayi is a small town in Taninthayi Township, Myeik District, in the Tanintharyi Region of southwestern Burma . It is the administrative seat for the township. The town is located on the Great Tenasserim River which eventually enters the sea at Myeik...
(Tenassarim) coast, along with Arakan
Rakhine State
Rakhine State is a Burmese state. Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State in the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Region in the east, the Bay of Bengal to the west, and the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh to the northwest. It is located approximately between...
, was ceded to Britain
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
under the Treaty of Yandabo
Treaty of Yandabo
The Treaty of Yandabo was the peace treaty that ended the First Anglo-Burmese War. The treaty was signed on 24 February 1826, nearly two years after the war formally broke out on 5 March 1824, by General Sir Archibald Campbell on the British side, and by Governor of Legaing Maha Min Hla Kyaw Htin...
at the end of the First Anglo-Burmese War.
It is probably best known to English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
speakers through the opening lines of Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
's poem Mandalay
Mandalay (poem)
Mandalay is a famous poem by Rudyard Kipling that was first published in the collection Barrack-Room Ballads, and Other Verses, the first series, published in 1892....
:
- "By the old Moulmein pagoda
- Lookin' lazy at the sea
- There's a Burma girl a-settin'
- and I know she thinks o' me".
Mawlamyine is also the setting of George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
's famous 1936 memoir Shooting an Elephant
Shooting an Elephant
"Shooting an Elephant" is an essay by George Orwell, first published in the literary magazine New Writing in the autumn of 1936 and broadcast by the BBC Home Service on 12 October 1948....
.The essay opens with the striking words:
- In Moulmein, in Lower BurmaLower BurmaLower Burma is a geographic region of Burma and includes the low-lying Irrawaddy delta , as well as coastal regions of the country ....
, I was hated by large numbers of people -- the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me.
During colonial times, Moulmein had a substantial Anglo-Burmese
Anglo-Burmese
The Anglo-Burmese, also known as the Anglo-Burmans, are a community of Eurasians of Burmese and European descent, and emerged as a distinct community through mixed relations between the British and other European settlers and the indigenous peoples of Burma from 1826 until 1948 when Burma gained...
population; an area of the city was known as 'Little England' due to the large Anglo-Burmese community, many of them engaged in the running of rubber plantations
Para rubber tree
Hevea brasiliensis, the Pará rubber tree, often simply called rubber tree, is a tree belonging to the family Euphorbiaceae, and the most economically important member of the genus Hevea...
; however nowadays this has dwindled to all but a handful of families as most have left for the UK or Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Geography
Salween River
The Salween is a river, about long, that flows from the Tibetan Plateau into the Andaman Sea in Southeast Asia. It drains a narrow and mountainous watershed of that extends into the countries China, Burma and Thailand. Steep canyon walls line the swift, powerful and undammed Salween, one of the...
delta
River delta
A delta is a landform that is formed at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...
, where the mouth of the Salween is sheltered by Bilugyun Island as it enters the Gulf of Martaban
Gulf of Martaban
The Gulf of Martaban is an arm of the Andaman Sea in the southern part of Burma. The gulf is named after the port city of Mottama . The Salween Sittaung and Yangon rivers empty into it....
and the Andaman Sea
Andaman Sea
The Andaman Sea or Burma Sea is a body of water to the southeast of the Bay of Bengal, south of Burma, west of Thailand and east of the Andaman Islands, India; it is part of the Indian Ocean....
. It is flanked by low hills dotted with ancient pagoda
Pagoda
A pagoda is the general term in the English language for a tiered tower with multiple eaves common in Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other parts of Asia. Some pagodas are used as Taoist houses of worship. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most commonly Buddhist,...
s to the east and west.
Transport
Mawlamyine is the main gateway to south-eastern Myanmar. Thanlwin BridgeThanlwin Bridge (Mawlamyine)
Thanlwin Bridge is the longest bridge in Burma, and connects the city of Mawlamyaing with Mottama. Constructed at the confluence of the Thanlwin River, the Gyaing River and the Attayan River in Mon State, the bridge has a two-mile -long motor road and four-mile -long railroad as well as pedestrian...
, the longest road and rail bridge in Myanmar is the most prominent landmark
Landmark
This is a list of landmarks around the world.Landmarks may be split into two categories - natural phenomena and man-made features, like buildings, bridges, statues, public squares and so forth...
in the area. It stretches a distance of 11,000 feet over the Thanlwin river connecting the country's south eastern region with Yangon. The city is connected to Pa-an in Kayin State
Kayin State
Kayin State is a state of Burma . The capital city is Hpa-an.-History:The region that forms today's Kayin State was part of successive Burmese kingdoms since the formation of the Pagan Empire in mid-11th century...
and Dawei
Dawei
-Transport:Only recently Dawei was connected to the rest of Myanmar by road and rail. There are plans to construct a deepwater port in Dawei. In November 2010, the Myanmar Port Authority signed a USD $8.6 billion deal with Italian-Thai Development to develop a deep sea port at Dawei...
and Myeik in Tanintharyi Division
Tanintharyi Division
Tanintharyi Region , is an administrative region of Myanmar, covering the long narrow southern part of the country on the Kra Isthmus. It borders with the Andaman Sea to the west and with the Tenasserim Hills, beyond which lies Thailand, to the east. To the north is the Mon State. The capital of...
by road. It was the rail
Rail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
head to Ye
Ye, Mon State
Ye is a town in the southern end of Mon State, Myanmar . It is the principal town of Ye Township of Mawlamyine District. The town is located by the Ye river as it drains into the Gulf of Martaban, and is surrounded by Tenasserim Hills in the east. It has a warm, moderate weather. The town's...
, linked to Yangon
Yangon
Yangon is a former capital of Burma and the capital of Yangon Region . Although the military government has officially relocated the capital to Naypyidaw since March 2006, Yangon, with a population of over four million, continues to be the country's largest city and the most important commercial...
by rail only from Mottama
Mottama
Mottama, formerly Martaban, is a small town in the Thaton district of Mon State, Myanmar. Located on the north bank of the Thanlwin river, on the opposite side of Mawlamyaing, Mottama was the first capital of the Hanthawaddy Kingdom in the 13th and 14th centuries, and an entrepôt of international...
(Martaban) across the river by ferry, but today connected by the new Thanlwin Bridge (Mawlamyine) opened in April 2006 .
Mawlamyine Airport has regular flights to Yangon
Yangon
Yangon is a former capital of Burma and the capital of Yangon Region . Although the military government has officially relocated the capital to Naypyidaw since March 2006, Yangon, with a population of over four million, continues to be the country's largest city and the most important commercial...
.
Economy
Mawlamyine is famous for its tropical fruits and for its cuisineCuisine
Cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific culture. Cuisines are often named after the geographic areas or regions that they originate from...
as indicated in the popular Burmese expression, "Mandalay
Mandalay
Mandalay is the second-largest city and the last royal capital of Burma. Located north of Yangon on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, the city has a population of one million, and is the capital of Mandalay Region ....
for the speaking, Yangon
Yangon
Yangon is a former capital of Burma and the capital of Yangon Region . Although the military government has officially relocated the capital to Naypyidaw since March 2006, Yangon, with a population of over four million, continues to be the country's largest city and the most important commercial...
for the bragging, and Mawlamyine for the eating".
Mawlamyine has several sawmill
Sawmill
A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....
s and rice mills as teak
Teak
Teak is the common name for the tropical hardwood tree species Tectona grandis and its wood products. Tectona grandis is native to south and southeast Asia, mainly India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Burma, but is naturalized and cultivated in many countries, including those in Africa and the...
and rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
are transported down the Salween. It was once a busy shipbuilding
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...
center and remains an important port. The city also has a solar-powered plant for extracting salt
Sea salt
Sea salt, salt obtained by the evaporation of seawater, is used in cooking and cosmetics. It is historically called bay salt or solar salt...
from seawater
Seawater
Seawater is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% . This means that every kilogram of seawater has approximately of dissolved salts . The average density of seawater at the ocean surface is 1.025 g/ml...
and a diesel electric plant.
On the night of 1 December 2008, a fire that started from a floating restaurant
Floating restaurant
A floating restaurant is a kind of vessel which is usually a type of steel barge used as a restaurant on water. For example, the Jumbo Palace at Aberdeen in Hong Kong is one such restaurant. Sometimes retired ships are given a second lease on life as floating restaurants. The former car ferry New...
destroyed the larger of city's two market
Market
A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...
s called the lower bazaar
Bazaar
A bazaar , Cypriot Greek: pantopoula) is a permanent merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers and craftsmen" who work that area...
.
On 27, May 2009, three bomb explosions in Mawlamyine were blamed on terrorists by the authorities; no casualties were reported.
Culture
Mawlamyine is key to communications in Tanintharyi, and being a busy seaport and transport center, it provides a multicultural dimension despite a Buddhist MonMon people
The Mon are an ethnic group from Burma , living mostly in Mon State, Bago Division, the Irrawaddy Delta, and along the southern Thai–Burmese border. One of the earliest peoples to reside in Southeast Asia, the Mon were responsible for the spread of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and Thailand...
majority. Buddhist cultural dominance is as old as Mawlamyine, but the British annexation
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
in the 19th century introduced Christianity, and St Patrick's School, Mawlamyine (now BEHS-5, Mawlamyine) was opened by the De La Salle Brothers
De La Salle Brothers in Myanmar
The De La Salle Brothers in Myanmar are part of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the largest congregation of Roman Catholic religious Brothers who are exclusively dedicated to education. The Institute was founded in Reims, France in 1680, with over 75,000 Brothers and lay...
in 1860. Moreover, expansion of trade and commerce
Trade and Commerce
In Canadian constitutional law, section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867 provides the federal government with the authority to legislate on matters related to the regulation of Trade and Commerce...
in the early 20th century established in Mawlamyine a Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
culture of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
(so-called Galakhar).
Education
Mawlamyine has 13 high schools, and a university. University of Mawlamyine is the major university for the south-eastern region, and offers bachelor's degrees in most arts and science majors. Students who wish to study medicine, engineering or computer science, or any advanced degree need to go to Yangon.The first international student
International student
According to Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development , international students are those who travel to a country different from their own for the purpose of tertiary study. Despite that, the definition of international students varies in each country in accordance to their own national...
of Bucknell University
Bucknell University
Bucknell University is a private liberal arts university located alongside the West Branch Susquehanna River in the rolling countryside of Central Pennsylvania in the town of Lewisburg, 30 miles southeast of Williamsport and 60 miles north of Harrisburg. The university consists of the College of...
, Class of 1864, Maung Shaw Loo - born in 1839 in Moulmein - was also the first native Burmese to study in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
See also
- University of Mawlamyine
- Thanlwin Bridge (Mawlamyine)Thanlwin Bridge (Mawlamyine)Thanlwin Bridge is the longest bridge in Burma, and connects the city of Mawlamyaing with Mottama. Constructed at the confluence of the Thanlwin River, the Gyaing River and the Attayan River in Mon State, the bridge has a two-mile -long motor road and four-mile -long railroad as well as pedestrian...
- Mawlamyine Airport
- Mon peopleMon peopleThe Mon are an ethnic group from Burma , living mostly in Mon State, Bago Division, the Irrawaddy Delta, and along the southern Thai–Burmese border. One of the earliest peoples to reside in Southeast Asia, the Mon were responsible for the spread of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and Thailand...
- Attaran BridgeAttaran BridgeAttaran Bridge is a bridge in the township of Mawlamyine, in the Mon State of Burma. The bridge is suspended by steel cable with a reinforced concrete foundation. It is 1,420 feet long and 24 feet wide and was reported to have cost K 580.6 million...
(Mawlamyine) - Sittoung BridgeSittoung BridgeSittoung Bridge is a bridge in the Mon State of Burma. The steel bridge links Mon State with the Bago Division and is 2392.7 feet long, with a capacity of 60 tonnes. It was built to replace the old 45 year old bridge that formally stood there...
(Bilin)
External links
- Photos of Moulmein
- Mawlamyine
- Weather forecast Weather UndergroundWeather Underground (weather service)Weather Underground is a commercial weather service that provides real-time weather information via the Internet. Weather Underground provides weather reports for most major cities across the world on its Web site, as well as local weather reports for newspapers and Web sites...
- Tide table Mobile Geographics