| Mandalay is the second largest city in Burma, with a population of 927,000 (2005 census), agglomeration 2.5 million. It was the last royal capital (1860–1885) of an independent Burmese Kingdom before annexation by the British, in 1885, and is capital of the current Mandalay Division. The city is bounded by the Ayeyarwady River to the west. Mandalay lies at the center of Myanmar's dry zone.
Transportation
Mandalay is the terminus of the main rail line from Yangon and the starting point of branch lines to Pyin U Lwin (Maymyo), Lashio and Myitkyina farther north. The Ayeyarwaddy of the "Road to Mandalay" fame remains an important arterial route for goods such as farm produce including rice and cooking oil, pottery, bamboo and teak.
Mandalay boasts the largest and most modern airport in Burma, Mandalay International Airport. Built at a cost of $150 million in 2000, the airport is highly underutilized; it serves mostly domestic flights with the exception of flights to Kunming.
Culture
Mandalay is Burma's cultural and religious center of Buddhism, having numerous monasteries and more than 700 pagodas. At the foot of Mandalay Hill sits the world's official "Buddhist Bible", also known as the world’s largest book, in Kuthodaw Pagoda. There are 729 slabs of stone that together are inscribed with the entire Buddhist canon, each housed in its own white stupa.
The buildings inside the old Mandalay city walls, surrounded by a moat repaired in recent times using prison labour, comprise the Mandalay Palace, mostly destroyed during World War II and now replaced by a replica, Mandalay Prison and a military garrison, the headquarters of the Northwest Military Command (Na Ma Hka).
|
