Hlaingthaya West township () is a township in Insein District,

Yangon Region Yangon Region (, ; formerly Rangoon Division and Yangon Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar. Located in central Myanmar, the region is bordered by Bago Region to the north and east, the Gulf of Martaban to the south, and Ayeyarwady ...

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 ...

. The township is the westernmost part of the city of

Yangon Yangon, formerly romanized as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar. Yangon was the List of capitals of Myanmar, capital of Myanmar until 2005 and served as such until 2006, when the State Peace and Dev ...

and is divided into 11 urban wards and 4

village tracts A village tract (; also spelt village-tract), also called overvillage, is a fourth-level administrative subdivision of Myanmar's rural townships. As of August 2015, there are 13,602 village tracts in Myanmar, consisting of 70,838 villages. The eq ...

grouping together a total of 9 villages. It is one of the few Yangon city townships with rural settlements. The township was split from the larger Hlaingthaya Township on 27 January 2020 according to Legal Notification 32/2020.

Geography

Hlaingthaya West is still an industrial township, but contains more residential and rural areas compared to Hlaingthaya East. The Hlaingthaya urban wards numbered from 9 through 21 (except Ward 15) belong to Hlaingthaya West, mostly being residential areas. The Industrial Zones in Hlaingthaya West as of 2023 are Shwe Lin Pan, Shwe Pinle, Shwe Thanlwin, Hlaingthaya Industrial Zone Five, Mya Sein Yaung and Anawtaw. The township also has an portion zoned for animal husbandry industrial processing next to the Kalargyi

village tract A village tract (; also spelt village-tract), also called overvillage, is a fourth-level administrative subdivision of Myanmar's rural townships. As of August 2015, there are 13,602 village tracts in Myanmar, consisting of 70,838 villages. The eq ...

History

Hlaingthaya grew as part of an effort to resettle squatters from central Yangon following the

8888 Uprising The 8888 Uprising, also known as the People Power Uprising and the 1988 Uprising, was a series of nationwide protests, marches, and riots in Burma (present-day Myanmar) that peaked in August 1988. Key events occurred on 8 August 1988 and ther ...

. In 1991, authorities began establishing industrial zones and produce trading centres in the township. The largest industrial zone of Yangon, Hlaingthaya Industrial Zone, was established in 1995 and covers a land area of 567 hectares. After the 2008

Cyclone Nargis Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Nargis (; , ) was an extremely destructive and deadly tropical cyclone that caused the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of Myanmar during early May 2008. The cyclone made landfall in Myanmar on Friday ...

, thousands of internally displaced refugees from the Ayeyarwady delta migrants re-settled in Hlaingthaya. During the 2021 Myanmar protests, a protest formed at the Ward 19 Administrative offices. According to the Ministry of Information, the protesters then broke in and destroyed the office leading to their arrest and imprisonment under

martial law Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties ...

. In August 2024, the Chinese-owned Sewell Garment factory, located in the township's Shwe Pinle Industrial Zone, caught on fire and caused significant property damage and injured firefighters and responders.

References

{{Yangon Region Townships of Myanmar