Administrative divisions of Myanmar

Administrative divisions of Myanmar
Category	Unitary state
Location	Republic of the Union of Myanmar
Number	7 regions, 7 states, 1 Union Territory, 6 self-administered zones (as of 2015)
Populations	286,627 (Kayah State) - 7,360,703 (Yangon Region)
Areas	7,054 km2 (2,724 sq mi) (Naypyidaw Union Territory) - 155,801 km2 (60,155 sq mi) (Shan State)
Government	Government of Myanmar
Subdivisions	District Township Ward and Village-tract Village

Myanmar is divided into twenty-one administrative subdivisions, which include:

The regions were called divisions prior to August 2010,^[1] and five of them are named after their capital city, the exceptions being Ayeyarwady Region and Tanintharyi Region. The regions can be described as ethnically predominantly Burman (Bamar), while the states, the zones and Wa Division are ethnic minority-dominant.

Yangon Region has the largest population and is the most densely populated. The smallest population is Kayah State. In terms of land area, Shan State is the largest and Yangon Region is the smallest.

States and regions are divided into districts (ခရိုင်; kha yaing or khayaing, IPA: [kʰəjàɪɴ]). These districts consist of townships (မြို့နယ်; myo-ne, IPA: [mjo̰nɛ̀]) that include towns (မြို့; myo, IPA: [mjo̰]), wards (ရပ်ကွက်; yatkwet, IPA: [jaʔ kwɛʔ])) and village-tracts (ကျေးရွာအုပ်စု; kyayywa oksu, IPA: [tɕé jwà ʔoʊʔ sṵ]). Village-tracts are groups of adjacent villages (ကျေးရွာ; kyayywa, IPA: [tɕé jwà]).

Structural hierarchy

Administrative regions

States, Regions, and Union Territories

Flag	Name	Burmese	Capital	ISO[2]	Region	Population (2014)	Area (km²)	Type
	Ayeyarwady Region	ဧရာဝတီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး	Pathein	MM-07	Lower	6,184,829[3]	35,031.8	Region
	Bago Region	ပဲခူးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး	Bago	MM-02	Lower	4,867,373[3]	39,402.3	Region
	Chin State	ချင်းပြည်နယ်	Hakha	MM-14	West	478,801[3]	36,018.8	State
	Kachin State	ကချင်ပြည်နယ်	Myitkyina	MM-11	North	1,689,441[3]	89,041.8	State
	Kayah State	ကယားပြည်နယ်	Loikaw	MM-12	East	286,627[3]	11,731.5	State
	Kayin State	ကရင်ပြည်နယ်	Pa-an	MM-13	South	1,574,079[3]	30,383	State
	Magway Region	မကွေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး	Magwe	MM-03	Central	3,917,055[3]	44,820.6	Region
	Mandalay Region	မန္တလေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး	Mandalay	MM-04	Central	6,165,723[3]	37,945.6	Region
	Mon State	မွန်ပြည်နယ်	Mawlamyaing	MM-15	South	2,054,393[3]	12,296.6	State
	Rakhine State	ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်	Sittwe	MM-16	West	3,188,807[3]	36,778.0	State
	Shan State	ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်	Taunggyi	MM-17	East	5,824,432[3]	155,801.3	State
	Sagaing Region	စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး	Sagaing	MM-01	North	5,325,347[3]	93,704.8	Region
	Tanintharyi Region	တနင်္သာရီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး	Dawei	MM-05	South	1,408,401[3]	44,344.9	Region
	Yangon Region	ရန်ကုန်တိုင်းဒေသကြီး	Yangon	MM-06	Lower	7,360,703[3]	10,276.7	Region
	Naypyidaw Union Territory	နေပြည်တော် ပြည်ထောင်စုနယ်မြေ	Naypyidaw	MM-18	Central	1,160,242[3]	7,054	Union Territory

Self-Administered Zones and Self-Administered Divisions

Self-Administered Zones and Self-Administered Division

System of administration

  States of Myanmar

  Regions of Myanmar

The administrative structure of the states, regions and self-administering bodies is outlined in the new constitution adopted in 2008.^[4]

States and regions

Each state or region has a Regional Government or a State Government consisting of a Chief Minister, other Ministers and an Advocate General. Legislative authority would reside with the State Hluttaw or Regional Hluttaw made up of elected civilian members and representatives of the Armed Forces. Both divisions are considered equivalent, the only distinction being that states have large ethnic minority populations and regions are mostly populated by the national majority Burmans.^[5]

Naypyidaw Union Territory

The constitution states that Naypyidaw shall be a Union Territory under the direct administration of the President. Day-to-day functions would be carried out on the President's behalf by the Naypyidaw Council led by a Chairperson. The Chairperson and members of the Naypyidaw Council are appointed by the President and shall include civilians and representatives of the Armed Forces.

Self-Administered Zones and Self-Administered Divisions

Self-Administered Zones and Self-Administered Divisions are administered by a Leading Body. The Leading Body consists of at least ten members and includes State or Regional Hluttaw members elected from the Zones or Divisions and other members nominated by the Armed Forces. The Leading Body has both executive and legislative powers. A Chairperson is head of each Leading Body.

Within Sagaing Region:^[6]

• Naga (Leshi, Lahe and Namyun townships)

Within Shan State:

• Palaung (Namshan and Manton townships)
• Kokang (Konkyan and Laukkai townships)
• Pao (Hopong, Hshihseng and Pinlaung townships),
• Danu (Ywangan and Pindaya townships),
• Wa Self-administered division (Hopang, Mongmao, Panwai, Pangsang, Naphan and Metman townships)

History

British colonisation

In 1900, Burma was a province of British India, and was divided into two subdivisions: Lower Burma, whose capital was Rangoon with four divisions (Arakan, Irrawaddy, Pegu, Tenasserim), and Upper Burma, whose capital was Mandalay with six divisions (Meiktila, Minbu, Sagaing, North Federated Shan States and South Federated Shan States).

On 10 October 1922, the Karenni States of Bawlake, Kantarawaddy, and Kyebogyi became a part of the Federated Shan States. In 1940, Minbu division's name was changed to Magwe, and Meiktila Divisions became part of Mandalay District.

Post-independence

Upon independence, on 4 January 1948, the Chin Hills area was split from Arakan Division to form Chin Special Division, and Kachin State was formed by carving out the Myitkyina and Bhamo districts of Mandalay Division. Karen State was also created from Amherst, Thaton, and Toungoo Districts of Tenasserim Division. Karenni State was separated from the Federated Shan States, and Shan State was formed by merging the Federated Shan States and the Wa States.

In 1952, Karenni State was renamed Kayah State. In 1964, Rangoon Division was separated from Pegu Division, whose capital shifted to Pegu. In addition, Karen State was renamed Kawthule State.

In 1972, the Hanthawaddy and Hmawbi districts were moved under Rangoon Division's juridstiction.

In 1974, after Ne Win introduced a constitution, Chin Special Division became a state, and its capital moved from Falam to Hakha. Kawthule State's name was reverted to Karen State, and Mon State was separated from Tenasserim Division. Mon State's capital became Moulmein, and Tenasserim Division's became Tavoy. In addition, Rakhine Division was granted statehood.

In 1989, after the coup d'état by the military junta, the names of many divisions in Burma were altered in English to reflect Burmese pronunciations.^[7]

After 1995, in Kachin State Mohnyin District was created out of Myitkyina District as part of the peace agreement with the Kachin Independence Army.

2008 Constitution

The 2008 Constitution stipulates the renaming of the 7 "divisions" (တိုင်း in Burmese) as "regions" (တိုင်းဒေသကြီး^[8] in Burmese). It also stipulates the creation of Union territories, which include the capital of Nay Pyi Taw and ethnic self-administered zones (ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရဒေသ^[8] in Burmese) and self-administered divisions (ကိုယ်ပိုင်အုပ်ချုပ်ခွင့်ရတိုင်း^[8] in Burmese).^[9] These self-administered regions include the following:

• Naga Self-Administered Zone: consisting of Leshi, Lahe and Namyun Townships in Sagaing Division
• Danu Self-Administered Zone: consisting of Ywangan and Pindaya Townships in Shan State
• Pa-O Self-Administered Zone: consisting of Hopong, Hsihseng and Pinlaung Townships in Shan State
• Pa Laung Self-Administered Zone: consisting of Namhsan and Manton Townships in Shan State
• Kokang Self-Administered Zone: consisting of Konkyan and Laukkai Townships in Shan State
• Wa Self-Administered Division: consisting of Hopang, Mongmao, Panwai, Nahpan, Metman and Pangsang (Pankham) townships in Shan State

On 20 August 2010, the renaming of the 7 divisions and the naming of the 6 self-administered zones was announced by Burmese state media.^[1]

See also

• Districts of Myanmar
• List of cities in Myanmar
• State and Region Government of Myanmar
• Flags of the Burmese states and regions
• ISO 3166-2:MM

References

External links

• Statoids

Administrative divisions of Myanmar
States	Chin Kachin Kayah Kayin Mon Rakhine Shan
Regions	Ayeyarwady Bago Magway Mandalay Sagaing Tanintharyi Yangon
Self-Administered Zones	Danu Kokang Naga Pa Laung Pa-O
Self-Administered Divisions	Wa
Union Territories	Naypyidaw