By the end of the colonial period, the majority of the population of the city was from outside Burma. Rangoon was a city founded by the British. There is clearly a symbolic element to having the capital in Naypidaw.

Every move of the capital has taken place for a mix of strategic, economic and cultural reasons, including when the British Empire decided to relocate from Mandalay to Rangoon in 1885. As Nicholas Farrelly has pointed out, the capital has been moved 38 times, with a tenure of only 52 years on average. This is the manicured articulation of a distinct vision of how a 21st century capital of Myanmar should look and function and there are reasons to believe it will ultimately fulfil this role.įirstly, it should be noted that, in the Burmese context, shifting the capital city is not an infrequent occurrence. You can’t help but feel the authority and power of the government when you visit. Indeed, its strategic and military advantages may well have contributed to the transition process. These may all be partly true, but ignore the nation-building role, both strategic and metaphoric, that the new location can potentially play. Rumors were rife that it was moved due to superstitious omens. There have also been suggestions that it was moved to be away from the coast: away from where an amphibious US invasion might be able to attack. More thoughtful pundits have speculated that the vast, from-scratch capital was moved in order to insulate the government from restive citizens in Yangon. Even UK pundit Jeremy Clarkson took time to laugh at it before returning to his more traditional racist comments.

Naypidaw’s impossibly wide boulevards, tidy roundabouts, organised layout, reliable electricity supply, and fast internet put the city in stark contrast with anywhere else in the country. When the work began, speculation was rife that the new capital, whose name means 'Capital of Kings', was born of delusions of grandeur or Than Shwe’s dementia either way, it was an absurd vanity project, pointless and surreal. And it is a strange place, located some 360 kilometers north of Yangon, the former capital and still the business centre. A decade on, what is this city for? Why does it exist at all? Ten years ago this week, construction began on Naypidaw’s Peace Pagoda, providing a spiritual heart to the sterile capital city that was unveiled a few months earlier.

Capital of myanmar