Burmese language in the context of "Three Pagodas Pass"

The Mergui Archipelago (also Myeik Archipelago or Myeik Kyunzu; Burmese: မြိတ်ကျွန်းစု) is located in far southern Myanmar (Burma) and is part of the Tanintharyi Region. It consists of around 800 islands, varying in size from very small to hundreds of square kilometres, all lying in the Andaman Sea off the western shore of the Malay Peninsula near its landward (northern) end where it joins the rest of Indochina. They are occasionally referred to as the Pashu Islands because the Malay inhabitants are locally called Pashu.

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 a population of about 55 million. It is bordered by India and Bangladesh to the northwest, China to the northeast, Laos and Thailand to the east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to the south and southwest. The country's capital city is Naypyidaw, while its largest city is Yangon (formerly Rangoon).

Early civilisations in the area included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Myanmar and the Mon kingdoms in Lower Myanmar. In the 9th century, the Bamar people entered the upper Irrawaddy valley, and following the establishment of the Pagan Kingdom in the 1050s, the Burmese language and culture and Theravada Buddhism slowly became dominant in the country. The Pagan Kingdom fell to Mongol invasions, and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo dynasty, the country became the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia for a short period. The early 19th-century Konbaung dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Assam, the Lushai Hills, and Manipur as well. The British East India Company seized control of the administration of Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century, and the country became a British colony. After a brief Japanese occupation, Myanmar was reconquered by the Allies. On 4 January 1948, Myanmar declared independence under the terms of the Burma Independence Act 1947.

British colonial rule in Burma lasted from 1824 to 1948, from the successive three Anglo-Burmese Wars through the creation of Burma as a province of British India to the establishment of an independently administered colony separate from British colonial India, and finally independence. The region under British control was known as British Burma, and officially known as Burma (Burmese: မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) from 1886.

Some portions of Burmese territories, including Arakan and Tenasserim, were annexed by the British after their victory in the First Anglo-Burmese War; Lower Burma was annexed in 1852 after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. These territories were designated as a chief commissioner's province known as British Burma in 1862.

Ba Maw (Burmese: ဘမော်, pronounced [ba̰ mɔ̀]; 8 February 1893 – 29 May 1977), known honorifically as Dr. Ba Maw, was a Burmese lawyer and politician, active during the interwar period and Second World War. He was the first Burma Premier (1937–1939) and head of State of Burma from 1943 to 1945.

Lower Myanmar (Burmese: အောက်မြန်မာပြည်, also called Lower Burma) is a geographic region of Myanmar and includes the low-lying Irrawaddy Delta (Ayeyarwady, Bago and Yangon Regions), as well as coastal regions of the country (Rakhine, Kayin and Mon States and Tanintharyi Region).

In the Burmese language, people originating from Upper Myanmar are typically called a-nya-tha for men and a-nya-thu for women, whereas those from Lower Myanmar are called auk tha (အောက်သား) for men and auk thu for women.

Upper Myanmar (Burmese: အထက်မြန်မာပြည် or မြန်မာပြည်အထက်ပိုင်း, also called Upper Burma) is one of two geographic regions in Myanmar, the other being Lower Myanmar. Located in the country's centre and north stretches, Upper Myanmar encompasses six inland states and regions, including Mandalay, Sagaing, Magway Regions, and Chin, Kachin and Shan States. By contrast, Lower Myanmar encompasses the southern and coastal-facing regions of Myanmar. Upper Myanmar is home to several distinct cultural regions, including the homeland of the Bamar in the low-lying central plains, and those of the Chin, Kachin, and Shan peoples in the highlands. Home to over 23 million people, the region's agricultural sector, natural resources, and shared borders with India, China, and Thailand have made Upper Myanmar a major economic hub. Four of Myanmar's ten largest cities—Mandalay, Taunggyi, Monywa, and Myitkyina—are located in the region.

Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Sinitic languages. Other Sino-Tibetan languages with large numbers of speakers include Burmese (33 million) and the Tibetic languages (6 million). Other languages of the family are spoken in the Himalayas, the Southeast Asian Massif, and the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Most of these have small speech communities in remote mountain areas, and as such are poorly documented.

Several low-level subgroups have been securely reconstructed, but reconstruction of a proto-language for the family as a whole is still at an early stage, so the higher-level structure of Sino-Tibetan remains unclear. Although the family is traditionally presented as divided into Sinitic (i.e. Chinese languages) and Tibeto-Burman branches, a common origin of the non-Sinitic languages has never been demonstrated.