States and Divisions
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 Division on the north and
Tanintharyi Division on the south. It has a short border with
Thailand's Kanchanaburi Province at its south-eastern tip. The
land area is 12,155 sq. km. Mon State includes many small
islands along its 566 km of coastline.
Its capital is Mawlamyine, formerly Moulmein.
Demographics
Although there are no modern figures on the
population of Mon State, it is estimated that the population
is around 8,466,000. The majority are Mon. However, there is a
large number of ethnic Bamar, as well as members of the
Kayin,and Pa-O ethnic groups. Many are isolated and many do
not understand or speak Burmese. The majority of people are
Buddhist. Economy
Mon State has a cultivated area of nearly
4.5 million acres (18,000 km²), mostly under rice. The major
secondary crop is rubber. Orchards and rubber plantations are
found in the mountainous areas. Coastal fishing and related
industries such as production of dried fish, fish sauce and
agar-agar are important enterprises. Other industries include
paper, sugar, rubber tires. Forests cover approximately half
of the area and timber production is one of the major
contributors to the economy. Minerals extracted from the area
include salt, antimony, and granite.
Natural resources such as forest products, and onshore and
offshore mineral resources, are exploited only by top Myanmar
military leaders and foreign companies. At the present time
one of the biggest foreign investments into Myanmar is for the
exploitation of natural gas reserves in Mon State.
Sites of interest
Kyaiktiyo Pagoda (or) kyaik-isi-yo pagoda -
A famous religious site with a steeple built on a rock covered
with gold leaf, precariously balanced on the site of a cliff.
Legend says that Buddha's hair was placed inside the pagoda,
and its power keeps the rock from falling.
Thaton - the former capital of an ancient Mon kingdom, much
earlier than Bagan.
Thanbyuzayat War Memorial - connected with the Bridge on the
River Kwai.
History
The Mon were one of the earliest ethnic
groups to occupy Burma, moving into the area possibly as early
as 1500 BC.[citation needed] Mon tradition holds that the
Suwarnabhumi mentioned in the Edicts of Ashoka and the
Dīpavamsa was the first Mon kingdom and that it was centered
on Thaton in 300 BC. However, this is disputed by scholars.
The Mon converted to Theravada Buddhism sometime before the
sixth century.[1] The first recorded kingdom that can
undisputedly be attributed to the Mon was Dvaravati which
prospered until around 1000 AD when their capital was sacked
by the Khmer Empire and most of the inhabitants fled west to
present-day Burma and eventually founded new kingdoms. These,
too, eventually came under pressure from new ethnic groups
arriving from the north. Successive waves of Burmese and Thai
groups slowly eroded the Mon kingdoms, and the last
independent Mon kingdom fell to the Burmese in 1757.
Lower Burma, including what is now Mon State, was conquered by
Great Britain in 1824 after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. The
Mon assisted the British in the war, in return for promises of
their own leadership after the defeat of Burma. Hundreds of
thousands of Mons who had migrated into Siam returned to their
homeland when it came under British rule. However, British
promises to restore the Mon Kingdom were never fulfilled.
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,
however nowadays this has dwindled to all but a handful of
families as most have left for the UK or Australia.
In 1947, the Mon sought self-determination from the yet
unformed Union of Burma; however Burmese Prime Minister U Nu
refused, saying that no separate national rights for the Mon
should be contemplated. The Burmese army moved into areas
claimed by the Mon nationalists and imposed rule by force
which resulted in a civil war. Mon separatists formed the Mon
Peoples Front, which was later superseded by the New Mon State
Party (NMSP) in 1962. Since 1949, the eastern hills of the
state (as well as portions of Thaninthaya Division) have been
under control of the NMSP, and its military arm, the Mon
National Liberation Front (MNLF). In addition to fighting the
central government, the MNLF has also fought the Karen over
control of lucrative border crossings into Thailand.
In 1974, partially to assuage Mon separatist demands, the
theoretically autonomous Mon State, was created out of
portions of Thaninthayi Division, Bago Division, and
Ayeyarwady Division. Resistance continued until 1995, when
NMSP and SLORC agreed a cease-fire and in 1996, the Mon Unity
League was founded. SLORC troops continued to operate in
defiance of the agreement. The human rights situation in Mon
State has not improved. International organizations have
repeatedly accused the Myanmar government for massive human
rights violations in Mon State, including forced labor,
arbitrary detention, population transfer, property
confiscation, rape, etc.
|
Mon State
|
| Capital |
Sittwe (Akyab) |
| Region |
West coastal |
| Area |
36,780 km² |
| Population |
2,698,000 |
| Ethnicities |
Rakhine, Bamar, Rohingya,
Chin |
| Religions |
Buddhism,
Islam, Christianity |
 |
|
|
Business
in Myanmar
Profile
