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Rakhine State, formerly Arakan, is a state of Myanmar. Situated the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State in the north, Magway Division, Bago Division and Ayeyarwady Division in the east, and the Bay of Bengal to the west. It is located approximately between latitudes 17°30' north and 21°30' north and east longitudes 92°10' east and 94°50' east. The Arakan Yoma mountain range, which rises to 3,063 m at Victoria Peak, separates Rakhine State from Myanmar proper. Its area is 36,762 sq km. and its capital is Sittwe, formerly known as Akyab. The estimated population in 1985 was 2,698,000 and it is inhabited primary by two groups of people the Rakhine ethnic group and Rohingya ethnic group. The remaining ethnic groups are Mro, Khami/Khumi, Kaman Muslim, Dienet, Marmagri and a few others. The majority of people are Buddhists, and second being the Muslim.
The term Rakhine derives from the Pali word Rakkhapura (Sanskrit Raksapura), meaning “Land of Ogres”, possibly a pejorative referring to the original Negitro inhabitants, or to the reputation of the land as a haven for pirates and slave traders. "Arakan", commonly used in British colonial times,is a Bengali/Arab/Portuguese corruption of the word Rakhine and still popular as a gesture of political opposition to the current Myanmar government.
Arakan was vaguely known to the Romans as Argyre (Pliny the Elder, Ptolemy) or Khruse (Periplus of the Erythraean Sea), which they only knew was somewhere near India.
Demographics
Ethnographers classify up to 11 ethnic groups (not including ethnic sub-groups) as “native” to Rakhine State. Rakhine and Bamar live in valleys and on Yambye and Manaung islands. Chin inhabit the mountain regions of the north. Mro, Thet, Khami, Dainet, Maramagyi, Khumi, and Kaman live on mountain ranges in the west and north. Each group is also known by more than one name, and data on the smaller ethnic groups is lacking. Ethnicity in Rahkine State is a complex issue, made more complex by the current political situation.
One such complication to the Rahkine ethnic issue is that of the Rohingya, whom the Myanmar government refers to as “Bengali Muslims” refusing to recognize as a legitimate native ethnic group, but who currently form perhaps 25% of the Rahkine population.
Organization
Rakhine State consists of five districts： Sittway, Maungtaw, Buthidaung, Kyaukpyu and Thandwe. These districts have 17 townships and 1,164 village-tracts.
Economy
Rakhine State receives much rain, so rice is the main crop, occupying around 85% of the total agricultural acreage. Coconut and nipa palm plantations are also important. Fishing is a major industry, with most of the catch transported to Yangon, but some is also exported. Wood products such as timber, bamboo and fuel wood are extracted from the mountains. Small amounts of inferior-grade crude oil are produced from primitive, shallow, hand-dug wells, but there is yet unexplored potential for petroleum and natural gas production.
Tourism is slowly being developed. The ruins of the ancient royal town Mrauk U and the beach resorts of Ngapali are the major attractions for foreign visitors, but facilities are still primitive, and transportation infrastructure is still rudimentary.
History
A kingdom called Dhanyawady arose in the Rakhine region in the 1st century AD, possibly much earlier. The famous Mahamuni Buddha (located in Mandalay) was cast in Dhanyawady in around 150 AD.
The kingdom of Wethali (Rakhine: Waithali) was the successor to Dhanyawady from the 3rd century AD. It was weakened by Mongol attacks in 957 and fell to the Burmans from Bagan in the late 11th century.
From the 15th century, the rise of the powerful Islamic kingdom of Gaur in Bengal exerted a strong influence over the area. From the 16th and 17th centuries, growing international trade by the Arabs, Dutch, Portuguese, and others enabled the trade center of Mruak U to break free of Burman rule in 1433. Mruak U built an empire that eventually stretched from Chittagong to Yangon, and even Pegu (which fell to the Rakhine in 1684). A Dutchman who visited Mrauk U in the 16th century compared it favorably to world capitals such as London or Amsterdam, and called it one of the richest cities in Asia. The Mruak U practiced a syncretic blend of Buddhism, Islam, and Hindu beliefs.
Mruak U was conquered by the Burmans under King Bodawpaya in 1784, who took the famous Mahamuni Buddha image as a war trophy to his capital of Mandalay (where it is still located). Burmese attacks on Rakine refugees in neighboring British Bengal was one of the instigating causes of the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26). Under the Treaty of Yandabo (1826), Burma ceded Arakan and Tenasserim to British India. Arakan was thus the first Burmese territory ceded to the British. The British made Akyab capital of new province, and retained the traditional divisions of the country into the districts of Akyab, Kyaukpyu and Sandoway (Ramree) with a district officer in charge of each. Akyab district originally included the Arakan Hill Tracts, which were detached 1865 and made into a separate district (and which is now Chin State).
With independence and the formation of the Union of Burma in 1948, the three Arakan districts became Arakan Division, on equal footing with the majority Burmese administrative divisions.
From the 1950s, there was a growing movement for secession and restoration of Rakhine independence. In part to appease this sentiment, in 1974, the Burmese government of Ne Win constituted Rakhine State from Arakan Division giving at least nominal acknowledgement of the majority Rakhine ethnic group. Pro-independence movements have been highly fragmented, and the Burmese military has capitalized on the existing tension between the majority Buddhists and minority Muslims (Rohingya). As with other areas of Myanmar, massive human rights violations by the Myanmar military have been reported. It has been alleged that villagers live under the constant threat of rape, beatings, arbitary arrest or execution, conscription as slave labor for the Myanmar army, and having their food and possessions taken without compensation. The Rohinga have been especially targeted with harsh discriminatory policies, causing hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee to neighboring Bangladesh in the 1990s, sparking a major international refugee crisis. Tens of thousands of Rohinga remain as refugees to this day.