Myanmar's shape is an irregular diamond stuck on a stick. The very top is very high; it is part of the southeastern corner of the Tibetan Plateau. The tallest mountain in Myanmar, Hkakabo Razi, is just south of the Chinese border.
The center of the nation consists of parallel ranges and valleys aligned north-south. Of these rivers the greatest are the Irrawaddy(2)--with its tributary, the Chindwinn--and the Salween. Between them is the Sittoung(3), which ends in the Gulf of Martaban. The delta of the Irrawaddy is a huge mangrove swamp, the bottom of the diamond.
Southeast of the Gulf of Martaban Myanmar continues along the mountainous west side of the Malay Peninsula, reaching south of 10 degrees North. Next to the peninsula is the Mergui Archipelago.The majority--more than six in ten--speak Burmese. Together with its close relatives it accounts for nearly seven in ten. Karen languages account for almost one in ten, and the larger group--Sino-Tibetan--which includes the Burmish and Karen groups accounts for more than six in seven.
Shan is the only other language spoken by more than one in twenty; about eight percent of the population speaks it. It is a Tai language, and, with its close relatives accounts for almost one in ten.
About six percent of the people speak languages in the Mon-Khmer group.
Almost nine in ten are Theravada Buddhists. Christians are about one in twenty.
Two cities are of great note: Rangoon(4), on the river of the same name and near the coast, is the current capital. It sits at the location of a sixth century Mon shrine that is marked by the Shwe Pagoda. Mandalay, almost 400 miles north and on the mid-Irrawaddy, is also known for a pagoda atop an old shrine: the Arakan Pagoda. It was one of many former Burmese capitals.
The Mon-Khmer peoples have perhaps been in the area the longest. In any case Sino-Tibetans arrived from southeastern China thousands of years ago. Burmese itself came from the northeast to the mid-Irrawaddy in the ninth century. In the 11th century the Burmese kingdom of Pagan conquered Arakan and the Irrawaddy delta. Pyu, another Sino-Tibetan language, disappeared. Mon receded but left strong traces on Burmese: loan words from Mon and Pali.
The Pali words came to the Mon with Buddhism(5), and that religion was also embraced by the Burmese, the Karen and eventually the Shan.
In the 13th century the Shan invaded from China. While they sometimes ruled farther, their linguistic influence was limited to the north.The English conquered Myanmar in the 19th century but had little lasting influence, save converting some to Christianity and adding technology-specific loan words to Burmese.
north
northeast
east
southeast
west of the Malay Peninsula
southwest of the Coco Islands
southwest
northwest
northwest from the northern corner of the nation
(1) Formerly called Burma; more exactly transliterated as Myanma
(2) Aveyarwady in Burmese.
(3) Or Sittang.
(4) Called Yangon in standard Burmese. Rangoon is in the Arakanese dialect favored by the British.
(5) The oldest preserved Pali scriptures in Myanmar are from 500 C.E. Indian legends say King Ashoka sent a mission to the Mon in the third century B.C.E.