Cheduba Island (; also known as Manaung Island) is an

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

in the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

close to Ramree Island and belongs to

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

, formerly Burma. It has a maximum length of , with an area of approximately . It belongs to Taungup District of

Rakhine state Rakhine State ( ; , ; ), formerly known as Arakan State, is a Administrative divisions of Myanmar, state in Myanmar (Burma). Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State to the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Re ...

. Cheduba had a population of 63,761 as of 1983, composed chiefly of Burmese and Arakanese peoples. The main economic activities on the island are

farming Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

and cattle raising.

Geography

Cheduba Island lies about from the southwestern coast of Ramree Island. It is located between 18° 40′ and 18° 56′ N. lat., and between 93° 31′ and 93° 50′ E. long. The

terrain Terrain (), alternatively relief or topographical relief, is the dimension and shape of a given surface of land. In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientati ...

of the island is quite flat with scattered moderate elevations. The highest point is on a ridge in the southwestern part of the island. There are 5 villages connected by a road that circles the island: Owa, Thitpon, Manaung, Budaunggwe, Sachet and Meinmangwe. There is an airfield west of Manaung, the main village of Cheduba, located on the northeast coast. Manaung is linked to the village of Kyaukpyu on nearby Ramree Island by steamer. Most of the vegetation is tropical

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

. There are mud

cone In geometry, a cone is a three-dimensional figure that tapers smoothly from a flat base (typically a circle) to a point not contained in the base, called the '' apex'' or '' vertex''. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines ...

s that emit

steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

and

sulfur Sulfur ( American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphur ( Commonwealth spelling) is a chemical element; it has symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms ...

ous fumes on the island, which indicate some

volcanic activity Volcanism, vulcanism, volcanicity, or volcanic activity is the phenomenon where solids, liquids, gases, and their mixtures erupt to the surface of a solid-surface astronomical body such as a planet or a moon. It is caused by the presence of a he ...

. There are also

seepage In soil mechanics, seepage is the movement of water through soil. If fluid pressures in a soil deposit are uniformly increasing with depth according to u = \rho_w g z_w, where z_w is the depth below the water table, then hydrostatic conditions wi ...

s of

oil and gas A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geologi ...

Nearby islands

*Taik Kyun is a wide roughly round islet located off the eastern coast, about north of Ye Kyun. * Ye Kyun is a long and wide island located off the southeastern end of Cheduba Island, separated from it by a wide strait with numerous detached reefs. Highest point . *Taung Kyun is a long low islet located off the southern end of Ye Kyun. Highest point .

Other islands in the vicinity

* Unguan is a long and wide islet located to the southeast of Cheduba's southern end. * Nantha Kyun is a roughly wide round island located off the mainland coast, about SSE of Unguan. Highest point .

History

Cheduba Island was a stop on the coastal trade route from

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

by which Indian civilization migrated to Myanmar. Historical records show that an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

of a magnitude of 8.5 to 9.0 hit off the western coast of Myanmar in April 1762, and reports speculated that a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

could kill more than one million people in Myanmar and Bangladesh. In 1881, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in the

caused "broad massive flames of fire" to be emitted on the island. In the 1780s, after the Burmese conquest of the area, Cheduba became a province of

Arakan Arakan ( or ; , ), formerly anglicised as Aracan, is the historical geographical name for the northeastern coastal region of the Bay of Bengal, covering present-day Bangladesh and Myanmar. The region was called "Arakan" for centuries. It is ...

. Cheduba was captured in 1824 by the British, whose possession of it was confirmed in 1826 by the Treaty of Yandabo concluded with the Burmese. The island, along with many other islands in the area, was evacuated and occupied by the

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. An earthquake in 1858 caused an island nearby to disappear.

References

External links