Army ranks and insignia of Myanmar
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In Myanmar, military rank system and insignia are used by the Myanmar Armed Forces, its auxiliary services, some government departments and some civilian organizations. All the government employees are called "
civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
personnel" (, . Their ranks and appointments are grouped into two category: # Officer () or gazetted officer (), "''(a) Officer means the service personnel at the ranks of the gazetted officer and above; (b) Staff means the service personnel at the ranks below the gazetted officer''" whose promotion and posting are recorded in the Gazette of Myanmar () # Staff (), ranks below the gazetted officers. Personnels of the Armed Forces and the Police Force are included in the civil service personnels but the rules of civil service personnels are not applied to them because of the special nature of their duties. The rank insignia of Myanmar Armed Forces is the basic form for all other rank insignia in Myanmar. * Some departments/organizations use the same insignia as that of the Armed Forces but with different colour, (example: rank insignia of
Myanmar Police Force The Myanmar Police Force ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့), formerly the People's Police Force (), is the law enforcement agency of Myanmar. It was established in 1964 as an independent department under ...
use silver stars instead of golden ones).Myanmar police chief Major General Zaw Win cautions reporters in Naypyidaw to accept only information that the police confirm about the killing of prominent rights attorney Ko Ni, Feb. 1, 2016. / RFA /
/ref> * Some use the same style as that of the Armed Forces but with organization's symbol in place of military stars (example: rank insignia of
Myanmar Red Cross Society Myanmar Red Cross Society (MRCS) was founded in 1937 and it was earlier called Burma Red Cross. It has its headquarters in Yangon. History In 1920, the Society came into existence as a branch of Indian Red Cross Society. When Burma was politi ...
use red crosses in place of rank stars). * Those departments that don't use the military-like uniform system, use the pin badges with rank insignia (example: rank insignia of
General Administration Department The General Administration Department ( my, အထွေထွေအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးဦးစီးဌာန, abbreviated GAD) is a civil service body that staffs all regional and state-level governments in Myanmar and provides adm ...
).The badge of a civil servant working at the Eastern Yangon General Administration Department office in Thingangyun Township. (Teza Hlaing / Frontier)
/ref>


Myanmar Armed Forces

All three branches of Myanmar Armed Forces
Myanmar Army The Myanmar Army ( my, တပ်မတော်(ကြည်း), ) is the largest branch of the Tatmadaw, Armed Forces (''Tatmadaw'') of Myanmar (Burma) and has the primary responsibility of conducting land-based military operations. The My ...
, Myanmar Navy and
Myanmar Air Force The Myanmar Air Force ( my, တပ်မတော် (လေ), ), known until 1989 as the Burmese Air Force, is the aerial branch of Myanmar's armed forces, the Tatmadaw. The primary mission of the Myanmar Air Force (MAF) since its inception h ...
— use the same rank system and insignia, the same rank titles in Burmese. But the English translations of titles are different according to the branch. For example, the
three-star general Military star ranking is military terminology, used to describe general and flag officers. Within NATO's armed forces, the stars are equal to OF-6–10. Star ranking One–star A one–star rank is usually the lowest ranking general or flag ...
rank in Burmese is "" (bauilaʻ khayupaʻ) for all three branches, but for the English translation, it is "Major General" for Army and Air Force, while it is "Vice Admiral" for the Navy.


Officers

In Myanmar Armed Forces, the officer cadets graduated from Defense Services Academies ( DSA, DSMA, DSTA, etc.) and Officer Training Schools (OTS) are directly appointed as gazetted officers with the rank of Second lieutenant. The Armed Forces has a unique general officer rank: Vice-senior general ( my, ဒုတိယဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး, Dautaiya bauilaʻ khayupaʻ mahūʺkarīʺ), a rank between the five-star rank of
Senior general Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...
and the four-star rank of General/Admiral. It is also a four-star rank but it is higher than the ordinary General or Admiral.


Special insignia of general/flag officers

In addition to the regular rank insignia, the general/flag officers have additional ones, that are only for them.


Staffs

In Myanmar Armed Forces, insignia-wearing staffs are commonly referred to as (, ) by both enlisted staffs and officers. For example,
Warrant officer Warrant officer (WO) is a rank or category of ranks in the armed forces of many countries. Depending on the country, service, or historical context, warrant officers are sometimes classified as the most junior of the commissioned ranks, the mo ...
s and
Staff sergeant Staff sergeant is a rank of non-commissioned officer used in the armed forces of many countries. It is also a police rank in some police services. History of title In origin, certain senior sergeants were assigned to administrative, superv ...
s are referred to as (, ),
Sergeant Sergeant ( abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other ...
are referred to as and
Corporal Corporal is a military rank in use in some form by many militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. The word is derived from the medieval Italian phrase ("head of a body"). The rank is usually the lowest ranking non- ...
/
Lance Corporal Lance corporal is a military rank, used by many armed forces worldwide, and also by some police forces and other uniformed organisations. It is below the rank of corporal, and is typically the lowest non-commissioned officer (NCO), usually equi ...
as (, ). These unofficial ranks are in used throughout the daily life of all branches of Myanmar Armed Forces. Insignia-wearing staffs within the Myanmar Armed Forces are usually seasoned veteran soldiers with wide-ranging experience of the battlefield, thus both officers and enlisted men refer to them as "teacher" out of respect as well as affection.


Myanmar Police Force

Myanmar Police Force The Myanmar Police Force ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့), formerly the People's Police Force (), is the law enforcement agency of Myanmar. It was established in 1964 as an independent department under ...
is an independent department of the
Ministry of Home Affairs An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...
, one of the ministries under administration of
Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services The commander-in-chief of Defence Services () is the commanding officer of the Tatmadaw, the armed forces of Myanmar. Since a state of emergency was declared following the 2021 military coup d'état, the commander-in-chief has been the highes ...
. The rank insignia of Myanmar Police Force are the insignia of Myanmar Armed Forces with different colours and with different titles.


Officers

In Myanmar Police Force, a person of the rank of Police second lieutenant and above is called an officer (); while an officer of the rank of Police Captain and above is called a gazetted officer ().


Staffs


Prisons Department

Prisons Department is a department of the
Ministry of Home Affairs An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...
, one of the ministries under administration of
Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services The commander-in-chief of Defence Services () is the commanding officer of the Tatmadaw, the armed forces of Myanmar. Since a state of emergency was declared following the 2021 military coup d'état, the commander-in-chief has been the highes ...
. The rank insignia of its officers are the same as that of
Myanmar Police Force The Myanmar Police Force ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့), formerly the People's Police Force (), is the law enforcement agency of Myanmar. It was established in 1964 as an independent department under ...
but with different titles.


Officers


Staffs


General Administration Department

General Administration Department The General Administration Department ( my, အထွေထွေအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးဦးစီးဌာန, abbreviated GAD) is a civil service body that staffs all regional and state-level governments in Myanmar and provides adm ...
is a department of the
Ministry of Home Affairs An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...
, one of the ministries under administration of
Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services The commander-in-chief of Defence Services () is the commanding officer of the Tatmadaw, the armed forces of Myanmar. Since a state of emergency was declared following the 2021 military coup d'état, the commander-in-chief has been the highes ...
. As its uniform is not the military style, pin badges are used to show ranks.A civil servant stands outside the Eastern Yangon General Administration Department office in Thingangyun Township. (Teza Hlaing / Frontier)
/ref>


Officers


Staffs


References

{{Military ranks by country
Ranks Rank is the relative position, value, worth, complexity, power, importance, authority, level, etc. of a person or object within a ranking, such as: Level or position in a hierarchical organization * Academic rank * Diplomatic rank * Hierarchy * H ...
Military insignia