transport: Bagan

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Bagan ( bə-GAN; Burmese: ပုဂံ Băgam [bəɡàɰ̃]; formerly Pagan) is a medieval city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Pagan Kingdom, the first kingdom that unified the regions that would later constitute Myanmar. During the kingdom's height between the 11th and 13th centuries, more than 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of over 2,300 temples and pagodas survive. The Bagan Archaeological Zone is a main attraction for the country's nascent tourism industry.

Evidence: 82 • authority: 72

The Pagan Kingdom (Burmese: ပုဂံပြည် Băgam pyi [bəɡàɰ̃ pji]; lit. 'Bagan state'), also called Bagan Empire (ပုဂံဧကရာဇ်နိုင်ငံတော်) or the First Burmese Empire, was the first Burmese kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-day Myanmar. Its classical names are Arimaddanapura and Tampadīpa. Pagan's 250-year rule over the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery laid the foundation for the ascent of Burmese language and culture, the spread of Bamar ethnicity in Upper Myanmar, and the growth of Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar and in mainland Southeast Asia. The kingdom grew out of a small 9th-century settlement at Pagan by the Mranma people, the predecessor to the modern Bamar et…

Evidence: 54 • authority: 80

Granada, Capital of al-Andalus and Core of the Nasrid Kingdom (7th–9th/13th–15th Centuries)

Evidence: 52 • authority: 72

The history of Myanmar (Burmese: မြန်မာ့သမိုင်း Myănma thămāing) covers the period from the time of first-known human settlements 13,000 years ago to the present day. Native to three imperial dynasties of South-east asia, the history of Myanmar is intertwined with the socio-political and cultural developments in the region over the past millennium. The earliest inhabitants of recorded history were Tibeto-Burman-speaking people who established an array of Pyu city-states that ranged as far south as Pyay and adopted Theravada Buddhism. Another group, the Bamar people, entered the upper Irrawaddy valley in the early 9th century. They went on to establish the Pagan Kingdom (1044–1297), the firs…

Evidence: 52 • authority: 72

Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has a population of about 55 million. It is bordered by India and Bangladesh to the northwest, China to the northeast, Laos and Thailand to the east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to the south and southwest. The country's capital city is Naypyidaw, while its largest city is Yangon (formerly Rangoon). Early civilisations in the area included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Myanmar and the Mon kingdoms in Lower Myanma…

Evidence: 36 • authority: 72

Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, and formerly known as Siam, is a country located in Mainland Southeast Asia. It shares land borders with Myanmar to the west and northwest, Laos to the east and northeast, Cambodia to the southeast, and Malaysia to the south. Its maritime boundaries include the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea, and it shares maritime borders with Vietnam, Indonesia, and India. Thailand has a population of nearly 66 million people and covers an area of approximately 513,115 km2 (198,115 sq mi). The capital and largest city is Bangkok. Archaeological evidence indicates that humans have inhabited the area for at least 40,000 years. Indigenous ethnic groups incl…

Evidence: 30 • authority: 88

Norway, Kingdom of (13th–14th centuries). Abstract The kingdom of Norway in the 13th and 14th centuries consisted of mainland Norway, plus the northeastern territory of Jemtland and the western island communities of the North Atlantic. The key trend of the period was the process by which these Norse communities became and remained part of the Norwegian kingdom, despite the increasingly distant rule from Sweden from the 1300s. The expansion of the Norwegian kingdom into the North Atlantic was achieved not by conquest, but through political maneuvering which led to the incorporation of territories with a similar Scandinavian culture and language. Ideologically the expansion was based on conte…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The military history of Myanmar (Burma) spans over a millennium, and is one of the main factors that have shaped the history of the country, and to a certain degree, the history of Southeast Asia. At various times in history, successive Burmese kingdoms were also involved in warfare against their neighbouring states in the surrounding regions of modern Burmese borders—from Bengal, Manipur and Assam in the west, to Yunnan (the southern China) in the northeast, to Laos and Siam in the east and southeast. The Royal Burmese Army was a major Southeast Asian armed force between the 11th and 13th centuries and between 16th and 19th centuries. The Mongol invasions (1277–1301) were an existential th…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Hanthawaddy Kingdom (Mon: ဍုၚ် ဟံသာဝတဳ, [hɔŋsawətɔe]; Burmese: ဟံသာဝတီ နေပြည်တော်; also Hongsawatoi or simply Pegu), classical name Ham̥sāvatī ("Realm of Hamsa"), was the major polity that ruled lower Burma (Myanmar) from 1287 to 1539 and briefly from 1550 to 1552, before serving as the imperial capital of the Burmese Toungoo dynasty. Originally founded as a Mon-speaking kingdom named Ramaññadesa (Mon: ရးမည, Burmese: ရာမည ဒေသ) by King Wareru following the collapse of the Pagan Kingdom in 1287 as a nominal vassal state of the Sukhothai Kingdom and the Mongol Yuan dynasty, it became formally independent in 1330. In its early phase under the Mon Wareru dynasty, the kingdom functioned as a…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The first Mongol invasion of Burma (Burmese: မွန်ဂို–မြန်မာ စစ် (၁၂၇၇–၁၂၈၇); Chinese: 元緬戰爭) was a series of military conflicts between Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty, a division of the Mongol Empire, and the Pagan Empire that took place between 1277 and 1287. The invasions toppled the 250-year-old Pagan Empire, and the Mongol army seized Pagan territories in present-day Dehong, Yunnan and northern Burma to Tagaung. The invasions ushered in 250 years of political fragmentation in Burma and the rise of ethnic Tai-Shan states throughout mainland Southeast Asia. The Mongols first demanded tribute from Pagan in 1271–1272, as part of their drive to encircle the Song dynasty of China. When King Narath…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The current capital of Myanmar (Burma) is Naypyidaw. The following is a list of political capitals of notable states in Burmese history from the 9th century to the present. The list is generally organised in dynastic and chronological orders. National capitals are shown in bold.

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Thaton (Burmese: သထုံမြို့, MLCTS: sa. htum mrui.pronounced [θətʰòʊɰ̃ mjo̰]; Mon: သဓီု /səthɜ̤m/) 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. It is 230 kilometres (140 mi) southeast of Yangon and 70 kilometres (43 mi) north of Mawlamyine. Thaton was the capital of Thaton Kingdom from at least the 4th century BC to the middle of the 11th century AD.