In 2011, the military junta was officially dissolved following a 2010 general election, and a nominally civilian government was installed. During this time, the United Nations and several other organisations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country. For most of its independent years, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife and a myriad of Burma's ethnic groups have been involved in one of the world's longest-running ongoing civil wars. Burma became an independent nation in 1948, initially as a democratic nation and then, following a coup in 1962, a military dictatorship which formally ended in 2011. The British conquered Burma after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the country became a British colony. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Burma and briefly controlled Manipur and Assam as well. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a brief period the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. The Pagan Empire fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged.
In the 9th century, the Burmans of the Kingdom of Nanzhao entered the upper Irrawaddy valley and, following the establishment of the Pagan Empire in the 1050s, the Burmese language, culture and Theravada Buddhism slowly became dominant in the country. Early civilisations in Burma included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu in Upper Burma and the Mon in Lower Burma. Burma's capital city is Naypyidaw and its largest city is Yangon. Burma is 676,578 square kilometres (261,227 sq mi) in size. Burma has a population of 51 million people. One-third of Burma's total perimeter of 1,930 km (1,200 miles) forms an uninterrupted coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. RAS3 Societal Discrimination of Minority Religions, Summary Categories (0=None 1=Low 2=Medium 3=High)īurma, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, commonly shortened to Myanmar, is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. Societal Discrimination of Minority Religions (2014) 4: RAS3 State Funding of Religion, Summary Categories (0=None 1=Low 2=Medium 3=High)
RAS3 State Discrimination of Minority Religions, Summary Categories (0=None 1=Low 2=Medium 3=High) Religious Minority Discrimination Index (2014) 4: RAS3 State Regulation of Majority or All Religions, Summary Categories (0=None 1=Low 2=Medium 3=High)