Myanmar (Burma)

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Myanmar (Burma) is located in southeast Asia with Bangladesh to the west, India to the west and northwest, China to the north and east, Laos and Thailand to the southeast, the Andaman Sea to the south, and the Bay of Bengal to the southwest.

Myanmar received its independence from the British Indian Empire in 1948. Since 1988 the country has been ruled by a military junta. Since 1989 the military has promoted the name Myanmar, however, this name was not adopted by the Burma legislature or accepted by the U.S. government. The capital of Myanmar is Yangon (also known as Rangoon) which is located on the southern coast of the country. The country’s currency is the kyat.

The July 2007 estimate of the population was 47,373,958 with a population growth rate of only .82 percent. The current life expectancy is 62.49 years with women outliving men by four and a half years. Myanmar has a moderate infant mortality rate (5.7 percent) and occurrence of HIV/AIDS (1.3 percent).

Myanmar is slightly smaller than Texas. Burmese is the language of the country although minority ethnic groups have their own languages. Myanmar has an 80.9 percent literacy rate of people over the age of 15 with over seven and a half percent more men being literate than women. The majority religion is Buddhism at 89 percent; Christian and Muslim make up an additional 8 percent.

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