Ramree Island (; also spelled Yanbye 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 ...

off the coast 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 ...

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 ...

(Burma). Ramree island is the largest island on the entire Arakan Coast and in Myanmar. The area of the island is about and the main populated center is Ramree. In the Burmese language it is known as Yanbye Island. The district on Ramree island is Kyaukpyu district, and Kyaukpyu is a major town and the second capital of Rakhine State.

Geography

The island is connected to the mainland by an isthmus, which is only wide on average. The highest point is Zikha Taung, a high mountain located near the western shore in the southern part of the island. There are mud volcanoes present on the island.

Nearby islands

* Sagu Kyun is a long and wide island located off the southern cape of Ramree, separated from it by a wide strait. * Magyi Kyun is a long islet off the southern end of Sagu Kyun. * Cheduba Island lies further offshore, about from the south-western coast of Ramree Island.

History

Originally, the island was a trading post for the

Kingdom of Mrauk U The Kingdom of Mrauk-U (Arakanese language, Arakanese: မြောက်ဦး ဘုရင့်နိုင်ငံတော်) was a kingdom that existed on the Arakan coastal plain from 1429 to 1785. Based in the capital Mrauk-U, near t ...

, with fishing villages spread across it. Ramree was the homeland of the last ruler 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 ...

, Maha Thammada. 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 ...

the Battle of Ramree Island was fought in January and February 1945, as part of the British 14th Army 1944–45 offensive on the Southern Front of the Burma campaign. At the close of the battle, Japanese soldiers were forced into the marshes surrounding the island, and

saltwater crocodile The saltwater crocodile (''Crocodylus porosus'') is a crocodilian native to saltwater habitats, brackish wetlands and freshwater rivers from India's east coast across Southeast Asia and the Sundaland to northern Australia and Micronesia. It ha ...

s are claimed to have eaten 400 (or 980 of them, as only twenty survived, according to one account) — in what the

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...

has listed as "The Greatest Disaster Suffered y humansfrom Animals". This version has been disputed; that, while a small number of Japanese soldiers were likely killed by crocodiles, the vast majority likely died due to a variety of other reasons including dehydration, drowning, British gunfire,

dysentery Dysentery ( , ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications may include dehyd ...

, and perhaps even a small number to sharks.

Wildlife

Saltwater crocodile The saltwater crocodile (''Crocodylus porosus'') is a crocodilian native to saltwater habitats, brackish wetlands and freshwater rivers from India's east coast across Southeast Asia and the Sundaland to northern Australia and Micronesia. It ha ...

s were still common in the Ramree Island region up and into the 1960s, but the region no longer supports a viable population of crocodiles, likely due to hide-hunting, and by the early 1980s evidence suggested only scattered individuals remained.

Pipeline

Ramree Island is also the location of a gas pipeline system that transports oil and gas from the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

coast to the province of

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. From a deep-water port on Kyaukphyu in Rakhine State and from Ramree Island, oil from the Middle East and gas from Myanmar's ocean coast is transported through the pipelines to China. Disjabsh is back, and the pipelines enable China to rely less on ocean-transported oil and gas through the treacherous

Strait of Malacca The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, long and from wide, between the Malay Peninsula to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connecting the Andaman Sea (Indian Ocean) and the South China Sea (Pa ...

and also cut two weeks off the transport time. The pipeline transport fees are a source of revenue for the Burmese government, on top of the sale of the gas. Construction began in 2012. The Myanmar section of the gas pipeline was completed on 12 June 2013 and gas started to flow to China on 21 October 2013. The oil pipeline was completed in August 2014.sources and more details here.

References

External links

*
The Terrible Myth Behind Ramree Island – And The (Maybe) Real Truth
{{Islands of Myanmar Islands of Myanmar World War II sites in Burma