Yangon

Yangon, sometimes romanised in English as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar. Yangon was the capital of Myanmar until 2005 and served as such until 2006, when the military government relocated the administrative functions to the purpose-built capital city of Naypyidaw in north central Myanmar. With over five million people, Yangon is Myanmar's most populous city and its most important commercial centre.

Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in Southeast Asia, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centred around the Sule Pagoda, which is reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda – Myanmar's most sacred and famous Buddhist pagoda.

Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure, especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia, such as Jakarta, Bangkok or Hanoi. Though many historic residential and commercial buildings have been renovated throughout central Yangon, most satellite towns that ring the city continue to be profoundly impoverished and lack basic infrastructure.

The name Yangon (ရန်ကုန်) is derived from the combination of the Burmese words yan (ရန်) and koun (ကုန်), which mean 'enemies' and 'run out of', respectively. This word combination can be translated as 'End of Strife'.

The name is pronounced /ˌjæŋˈɡɒn/ yang-GON in British English and /ˌjɑːnˈɡoʊn/ yahn-GOHN in American English.

The English romanisation, Rangoon, is based on the Rakhine dialect, and pronounced /ræŋˈɡuːn/ rang-GOON in English.

Yangon was founded as Dagon in the early 11th century (c. 1028–1043) by the Mon people, who inhabited Lower Burma at that time. Dagon became an important pilgrimage pagoda town, starting in the 14th century, during the Hanthawaddy Kingdom. Notable governors of Dagon included Princess Maha Dewi, who ruled the town from 1364 to 1392, and her grandniece, Shin Saw Pu, who later became the only female queen regnant in Burmese history. Queen Saw Pu built a palace next to the Shwedagon Pagoda in the town in 1460 and spent her semi-retired life at that palace until her death in 1471.

In 1755, King Alaungpaya, the founder of the Konbaung dynasty captured Dagon, added settlements around it, and called the enlarged town "Yangon". In the 1790s, the East India Company opened a factory in Yangon. The estimated population of Yangon in 1823 was about 30,000. The British captured Yangon during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26), but returned the city to Burmese rule after the war. The city was destroyed by a fire in 1841.