Thanlyin Township () is a township in Thanlyin District, southeast Yangon Region,

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 has only one town- the principal town of Thanlyin, which has seventeen urban wards. The township also has 57 villages grouped into 28 village tracts. The township located across the Bago River from 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 home to Thilawa Port, the largest port terminal in Myanmar.

History

Thanlyin became a prominent port city in during the Hanthawaddy Kingdom when the port of Bago became silted in the 15th century. In 1599, the city was conquered by 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 ...

's Portuguese mercenaries. The leader of the mercenaries

Filipe de Brito e Nicote Filipe de Brito e Nicote or Burmese honorifics, Nga Zinga (, ; c. 1566 – April 1613) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese adventurer and mercenary in the service of the Rakhine people, Arakanese kingdom of Mrauk U, and later of the Thai people, ...

was made governor of the city. However, in 1603, De Brito declared independence with the help of Goa and, after the 1605 Syriam battles, successfully established Portuguese rule over Syriam. He was declared King of Sirião. 10 years later,

Anaukpetlun Anaukbaklun ( ; 21 January 1578 – 9 July 1628) was the sixth king of Taungoo Burma and was largely responsible for restoring the kingdom after it collapsed at the end of 16th century. In his 22-year reign from 1606 to 1628, Anaukpetlun comple ...

of the restored Taungoo Dynasty retook the city, and executed de Brito by

impalement Impalement, as a method of torture and execution, is the penetrating trauma, penetration of a human by an object such as a stake, pole, spear, or hook, often by the complete or partial perforation of the torso. It was particularly used in respon ...

. In 1613, Burmese king

recaptured the city, and executed Brito by

, a punishment reserved for defilers of

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

s. Thanlyin remained the major port of the Taungoo kingdom until the mid-18th century. In the 1740s, Thanlyin was made the base of the French East India Company for their help in the Mon's reestablishment of Hanthawaddy Kingdom. The arrangement lasted until 1756 when King

Alaungpaya Alaungpaya (, ; also spelled Alaunghpaya or Alaung-Phra; 11 May 1760) was the founder and first emperor of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma. By the time of his death from illness during his Burmese–Siamese War (1759–60), campaign in Siam, this ...

Konbaung dynasty The Konbaung dynasty (), also known as the Third Burmese Empire (တတိယမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်), was the last dynasty that ruled Burma from 1752 to 1885. It created the second-largest empire in history of Mya ...

captured the city. From then on, the importance has shifted to

across the river. In 1990, the township saw renewed development as Thanlyin was identified as a location for a new deep water port to replace the overcroweded ports in Yangon. The new Thilawa Port was built, becoming the country's largest port, with special economic zones and industrial parks planned nearby.

Education

Thanlyin also has several universities, all located just outside the limits of Thanlyin town. It is home to Myanmar Maritime University, one of the most selective universities in Burma. Since the early 2000s, students from Thanlyin and surrounding suburbs have to attend local universities: the University of East Yangon for liberal arts and sciences, Technological University, Thanlyin for engineering and Co-operative University, Thanlyin for business.

References

Townships of Myanmar {{Sagaing-geo-stub