Kanmaw Kyun or Kanmaw Island is an island in the

Andaman Sea The Andaman Sea (historically also known as the Burma Sea) is a marginal sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean bounded by the coastlines of Myanmar and Thailand along the Gulf of Martaban and west side of the Malay Peninsula, and separated fro ...

along the coast of southeastern

Burma (Myanmar) Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

, and is part of the

Mergui Archipelago The Mergui Archipelago (also Myeik Archipelago or ''Myeik Kyunzu''; my, မြိတ်ကျွန်းစု) is located in far southern Myanmar (Burma) and is part of the Tanintharyi Region. It consists of more than 800 islands, varying ...

. Administratively, it is located in Kyunsu Township, Myeik District, in the

Taninthayi Region Tanintharyi Region ( my, တနင်္သာရီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; Mon: or ; ms, Tanah Sari; formerly Tenasserim Division and subsequently Tanintharyi Division, th, ตะนาวศรี, RTGS: ''Tanao Si'', ...

. On the northeastern side of the island is the town of Kyunsu, which is the administrative seat for the township. The island covers a total area of 409 km².

Etymology

Under the British, the island was known as Kisseraing Island,Hydrographic Office (1916) ''Bay of Bengal Pilot: Bay of Bengal and the Coasts of India and Siam, including the Nicobar and Andaman Islands'' US Navy, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
page 432
"Burma 1:250,000 topographic map, Series U542, Bokpyin NC 47-2"
U.S. Army Map Service, July 1960 Kithareng or Ketthayin. After the June 1989 "Adaptation of Expressions Law" the island's name was changed to Kanmaw, named after the town of Kanmaw on the northeastern coast, which is now called Kyunsu.

Geography

Kanmaw is located in the

in the east central

. Kanmaw is surrounded by other islands of the archipelago. This includes the elongated Letsok-aw Island to the west, and Money Island and

Sabi Island Sabi Island (Sabi Kyun or Trotter Island"Trotter Island (Variant)" , United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) is an island in the Mergui Archipelago of Taninthayi Region, Burma (Myanmar). It lies between Money Island to the south a ...

above that,

Julian Island Julian may refer to: People * Julian (emperor) (331–363), Roman emperor from 361 to 363 * Julian (Rome), referring to the Roman gens Julia, with imperial dynasty offshoots * Saint Julian (disambiguation), several Christian saints * Julian (g ...

and

Tucker Island Tucker may refer to: Places United States * Tucker, Arkansas * Tucker, Georgia * Tucker, Mississippi * Tucker, Missouri * Tucker, Utah, ghost town * Tucker County, West Virginia Outer space * Tucker (crater), a small lunar impact crater in ...

and Sakanthit Island further to the north and larger islands to the east, Medaw and the larger

Singu Island Singu is a town in the Mandalay Region of central Myanmar. It is the capital of Singu Township. Geography Singu is located by the Irrawaddy Irrawaddy may refer to: *Irrawaddy River, the main river of Burma *Irrawaddy Delta, a rice growing regi ...

. Kanmaw, covering about , with a coastline of 130.4 km in the Mergui Archipelago is almost densely forested with tropical rain forest and dry deciduous forests and a number of short rivers raising in the forested hills. It has sandy beaches and coral reefs along its coastline. The larger villages on Kanmaw aside from the main town of Kyunsu are Bemagyauk Ywa, Thechaung and Mawngaungdon Ywa on its east coast and Yedwindaung Ywa on its west coast with Sidongyaung in the mid-west to the northeast of Yedwinfaung Ywa.

Economy

The economy of the Kanmaw is dependent on

rubber plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...

s. To improve the economic conditions, village roads are being built in the island. A shrimp farming project was also launched in May 2001 said to be the largest foreign investment project in the livestock-breeding sector.

References

{{Islands of Burma Mergui Archipelago