Early history Yangon was founded as
Dagon in the early 11th century () 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.
Colonial Rangoon (1852–1948) The British
captured Yangon and all of
Lower Burma in the
Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into the commercial and political hub of
British Burma. After the war, the British moved the capital of British Burma from Moulmein (present-day
Mawlamyine) to Yangon. Based on the design by army engineer
Lt. Alexander Fraser, the British constructed a new city on a grid plan on delta land, bounded to the east by the
Pazundaung Creek and to the south and west by the
Yangon River. Yangon became the capital of all
British-ruled Burma after the British had captured
Upper Burma in the
Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. By the 1890s, Yangon's growing population and commerce gave birth to prosperous residential suburbs to the north of
Royal Lake (Kandawgyi) and
Inya Lake. The British also established hospitals including
Rangoon General Hospital and colleges including
Rangoon University. After the
Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British sent
Bahadur Shah II, the last
Mughal emperor, to Yangon to live in exile. Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings and traditional wooden architecture, was known as "the garden city of the East". Before
World War II, about 55% of Yangon's population of 500,000 was
Indian or
South Asian, and only about a third was
Bamar (Burman).
Karens,
Chinese,
Anglo-Burmese, and others made up the rest. After
World War I, Yangon became the center of the Burmese independence movement, with leftist Rangoon University students leading the way. Three nationwide strikes against British rule in 1920, 1936, and 1938 lead by
April lin Htet all began in Yangon. Yangon was under
Japanese occupation (1942–45), and incurred heavy damage during World War II. The city was retaken by the
Allies in May 1945. Yangon became the capital of the Union of Burma on 4 January 1948 when the country gained independence from British rule.
Contemporary Yangon (1948–present) Soon after Burma's independence in 1948, many colonial-era names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the
military junta changed the city's English name to "Yangon", along with many other changes in English transliteration of Burmese names. (The changes have not been accepted by many Burmese who consider the junta unfit to make such changes, nor by many publications and news bureaus, including, most notably, the
BBC and foreign nations including the United Kingdom and the United States.) Since independence, Yangon has expanded outwards. Successive governments have built satellite towns such as
Thaketa,
North Okkalapa and
South Okkalapa in the 1950s to
Hlaingthaya,
Shwepyitha and
South Dagon in the 1980s. leading the city government to place about 200 notable colonial-period buildings under the
Yangon City Heritage List in 1996. Major building programs resulted in six new bridges and five new highways linking the city to its industrial back country. Still, much of Yangon remains without basic municipal services such as 24-hour electricity and regular garbage collection. Yangon has become much more indigenous Burmese in its ethnic make-up since independence. After independence, many South Asians and Anglo-Burmese left. Many more South Asians were forced to leave during the 1960s by Ne Win's xenophobic government. The city's streets saw bloodshed each time as protesters were gunned down by the government, most notably during the
1988,
2007, and
2021 mass protests, all of which were started in Yangon itself, signifying its importance as the cultural centre of
Burma. In May 2008,
Cyclone Nargis hit Yangon. While the city had few human casualties, three-quarters of Yangon's industrial infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, with losses estimated at US$800 million. In November 2005, the military government designated
Naypyidaw, north of Yangon, as the new administrative capital, and moved much of the government to the newly developed city. Yangon remains the largest city and the most important commercial,
economic and cultural center of Myanmar. On 7 May 2005, a series of coordinated bombings occurred in the city of Yangon, Myanmar. Eleven people were killed in the attack, and one of the 162 people that were injured was a member of the
LCMS mission team to Myanmar. . In the 2020s, life in Yangon was greatly affected by the
COVID-19 pandemic and
2021 coup d'état. The city was the location of
mass protests in response to the coup. The pandemic and protests prompted the authorities to enforce a series of
lockdowns and
curfews. The city's economy subsequently slowed. ==Geography==