Geography
Area 676,577 sq km. Basin and delta of the Irrawaddy River ringed by a horseshoe of high mountains that isolates the country from India, China and Thailand.
Population 2010 50,495,672 2020 55,496,711 2030 59,352,944 | Ann Gr 0.87% 0.89% 0.61% | Density 75/sq km 82/sq km 88/sq km | ||
Capital Naypyidaw 1,024,062. Other major cities Yangon 4.3 million; Mandalay 1.0mill. Urbanites 33.9%. Pop under 15 yrs 27%. Life expectancy 61.2 yrs.
Peoples
Very diverse ethnically. There are eight major national races and (officially) 135 sub-groups and tribes. There are many more smaller tribes and language groups. Official figures deliberately underestimate minority ethnic populations, and there are no reliable census figures since 1931.
Tibetan-Himalayan 78.7%.
Burmese (Bama) 62.8%. Burmese 55.8%; Rakhine 7.2%; 4 other peoples. Karen 9.4%. 24 peoples including S’gaw 3.6%; Eastern Pwo 2.2%; Black Karen 1.6%. Kuki-Chin 2.5%. 39 peoples. Chin(19) 1.8%. Miri-Kachin 2.4%. Kachin 1.9%.
Southeast Asian 14.8%.
Shan 8.5%; Mon- Khmer(14) 4.5%; Palaung(4) 1.4%.
South Asian 4.2%. Rohingya 1.9%.
Other 2.3%. Chinese(4) 2.0%.
Literacy 89.7%. Official language Burmese. All languages 116. Languages with
Scriptures 26Bi 15NT 24por. Another 135 languages or dialects with no Scripture.
Economy
Richly blessed with teak forests, fertile soil for agriculture, precious gems and minerals, and offshore oil and gas deposits, but most people live in poverty or at subsistence levels. The military junta has both pillaged and stunted the economy so that the former “rice bowl of Asia” sees two-thirds of its children malnourished and
the majority survive on less than $1/day.
Amphetamines replaced opium as the illicit drug of choice. Inflation, political isolation and the devastation of cyclone Nargis in 2008 combine to intensify the pressure on an already impoverished populace.
HDI Rank 138th/182. Public debt 4.5% of GDP. Income/person $446 (1% of USA).
Politics
Independent in 1948, after being part of India under the British Empire and occupied by Japan during WWII. Unfulfilled promises of autonomy for the ethnic regions prompted armed separatist movements, which persist to this day. The military dictator of 25 years faced popular demonstrations in 1988-89. After the 1990
elections were swept by the opposition, the military arrested the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and ignored the election results. She has spent most of her time since then as a detainee of the regime. The secretive military junta, the “State Peace and Development Council”, has used its position to imprison opponents, implement forced labour, commit genocide against restive minorities and generally repress all expressions of dissent. The crackdown on 2007 protests and the relocation of the capital to Naypyidaw further isolated the junta from the population. A member of ASEAN. A new constitution was written by the regime and endorsed in a rigged referendum in 2008; elections are planned for 2010.
Religion
The regime recognized the special status of Buddhism in Myanmar. Freedom of religion exists, at least according to the constitution, and Christianity and Islam are strong among several minority groups. The combination of ethnic, political and religious differences along with violent opposition means that some Christian minorities suffer greatly at the hands of the military.
Religions Buddhist Christian Muslim Chinese Ethnoreligionist Hindu Non-religious | Pop % 80.04 8.98 7.20 2.30 0.63 0.45 0.40 | Population 40,416,736 4,534,511 3,635,688 1,161,400 318,123 227,231 201,983 | Ann Gr 0.6% 2.7% 2.0% 2.7% -1.2% 0.0% 0.9% | |||
