Myanmar / Population / Burmans

Photo: Burmanese women working on handicrafts

Making up about 68 % of the population the Burmans are the largest group of Myanmar's people. Ethnically they belong to the TibetoBurman group.

Since the early centuries of Christian records, the valley and delta of the Ayeyarwaddy have been populated by members of the TibetoBurman ethnic group, though initially not by the Burmans but by the Pyu. In that period the Burmans invaded the valley of the Ayeyarwaddy from a region, which today is a part of South China. In 849 they set up their first kingdom (with the capital Bagan) and in the following period conquered the area of the Pyu.

While the Burmans partially took over the social and artistic traditions of the Pyu, they absorbed their population, so that today the Pyu do not appear as an individual group anymore.

As of old, the present main settlement area of the Burmans are the valley and the delta of the Ayeyarwaddy, one of the agriculturally most fertile regions of the world.

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