, constructed in 994 A.D. by King Migadepa
Establishment Various
Mon language chronicles report widely divergent foundation dates of Bago, ranging from 573 CE to 1152 CE while the
Zabu Kuncha, an early 15th century Burmese administrative treatise, states that Pegu was founded in 1276/77 CE. The earliest extant evidence of Pegu as a place dates only to the late
Pagan period (1212 and 1266) when it was still a small town, not even a provincial capital. After the collapse of the Pagan Empire, Bago became part of the breakaway
Kingdom of Martaban by the 1290s. The earliest possible external record of Bago dates to 1028 CE. The Thiruvalangadu plate describe
Rajendra Chola I, the
Chola Emperor from South India, as having conquered "Kadaram" in the fourteenth year of his reign – 1028 CE. According to one interpretation, Kadaram refers to Bago. More modern interpretations understand Kadaram to be
Kedah in modern day Malaysia, instead of Bago.
Growth The small settlement grew increasingly important in the 14th century as the region became most populous in the Mon-speaking kingdom. In 1369, King
Binnya U made Bago the capital. During the reign of King
Razadarit, Bago and the
Ava Kingdom were engaged in the
Forty Years' War. The peaceful reign of Queen
Shin Sawbu came to an end when she chose the
Buddhist monk Dhammazedi (1471–1492) to succeed her. Under Dhammazedi, Bago became a centre of commerce and
Theravada Buddhism. In 1519,
António Correia, then a merchant from the Portuguese
casados settlement at
Cochin, landed in Bago (known to the Portuguese as Pegu) looking for new markets for pepper from Cochin. A year later,
Portuguese India Governor Diogo Lopes de Sequeira sent an ambassador to Pegu.
Toungoo dynastic capital The city remained the capital until the kingdom's fall in 1538. The ascendant
Toungoo dynasty under
Tabinshwehti made numerous raids that the much larger kingdom could not muster its resources against. While the kingdom would have a brief resurgence for 2 years in the 1550s, Tabinshwehti's successor
Bayinnaung would firmly come to control Bago in 1553. In late 1553, Bago was proclaimed the new capital with commissioning of a new palace, the
Kanbawzathadi Palace and Bayinnaung's coronation itself in January 1554. Over the next decade, Bago gradually become the capital of more land and eventually the largest empire in Indochina. After the 1565 rebellion by resettled Shans in Pegu, he faced no new rebellions for the next two years (1565–1567). Because the rebellion burned down major swaths of the capital, including the entire palace complex, he had the capital and the palace rebuilt. The new capital had 20 gates, each named after the vassal who built it. The newly rebuilt Kanbawzathadi Palace was officially opened on 16 March 1568, with every vassal ruler present. He even gave upgraded titles to four former kings living in Pegu:
Mobye Narapati of Ava,
Sithu Kyawhtin of Ava,
Mekuti of Lan Na, and
Maha Chakkraphat of Siam. The Portuguese conquest of Pegu, following the destruction caused by the kings of Tangot and Arrakan in 1599, was described by Manuel de Abreu Mousinho in the account called "Brief narrative telling the conquest of Pegu in eastern India made by the Portuguese in the time of the viceroy Aires de Saldanha, being captain
Salvador Ribeiro de Sousa, called Massinga, born in Guimarães, elected as their king by the natives in the year 1600", published by Fernão Mendes Pinto in the 18th century. The 1599 destruction of the city and the crumbling authority of Bayinnaung's successor
Nanda Bayin saw the Toungoo dynasty flee their capital to
Ava. The capital was looted by the viceroy of
Toungoo,
Minye Thihathu II of Toungoo, and then burned by the viceroy of
Arakan during the
Burmese–Siamese War (1594–1605).
Anaukpetlun wanted to rebuild Hongsawadi and the glories of Bago, which had been deserted since Nanda Bayin had abandoned it. He was only able to build a temporary palace, however. (1472–92) and now in the
British Museum's collection The Burmese capital's return to Bago was short lived as the royal capital was once again relocated to
Ava in 1634 by the next king
Thalun to focus on the core of the smaller Burmese empire.
The fall of the Toungoo and Konbaung dynasty In 1740, the Mon revolted and founded the
Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom. However, a
Bamar king,
Alaungpaya, captured the city in May 1757. Bago was rebuilt by King
Bodawpaya (r. 1782–1819), but by then the river had shifted course, cutting the city off from the sea. It never regained its previous importance. After the
Second Anglo-Burmese War, the
British annexed Bago in 1852. In 1862, the province of
British Burma was formed, and the capital moved to
Yangon. The substantial differences between the colloquial and literary pronunciations, as with Burmese words, was a reason of the British corruption "Pegu". In 1911, Hanthawaddy was described as a district in the
Bago (or
Pegu) division of
Lower Burma. It lay in the home district of
Yangon, from which the town was detached to make a separate district in 1880. It had an area of , with a population of 48,411 in 1901, showing an increase of 22% in the past decade. Hanthawaddy and
Hinthada were the two most densely populated districts in the province. Hanthawaddy, as it was constituted in 1911, consisted of a vast plain stretching up from the sea between the mouth of the
Irrawaddy River and the
Pegu Range. Except the tract of land lying between the Pegu Range on the east and the
Yangon River, the country was intersected by numerous
tidal creeks, many of which were navigable by large boats and some by steamers. The headquarters of the district was in Rangoon, which was also the sub-divisional headquarters. The second sub-division had its headquarters at
Insein, where there were large railway works. Cultivation was almost wholly confined to rice, but there were many vegetable and fruit gardens.
Modern history Today, Hanthawaddy is one of the wards of Bago's city proper. The town of Bago is subdivided into 34 wards. ==Demographics==