Kayin State in the context of Kanchanaburi

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.

The Mon (Mon: ဂကူမန်listen; Thai Mon: ဂကူမည်; Burmese: မွန်လူမျိုး‌, pronounced [mʊ̀ɰ̃ lù mjó]; Thai: มอญ, pronounced [mɔ̄ːn] listen) are an ethnic group who inhabit Lower Myanmar's Mon State, Kayin State, Kayah State, Tanintharyi Region, Bago Region, the Irrawaddy Delta, and several areas in Thailand (mostly in Pathum Thani province, Phra Pradaeng and Nong Ya Plong). The native language is Mon, which belongs to the Monic branch of the Austroasiatic language family and shares a common origin with the Nyah Kur language, which is spoken by the people of the same name that live in Northeastern Thailand. A number of languages in Mainland Southeast Asia are influenced by the Mon language, which is also in turn influenced by those languages.

The Mon were one of the earliest to reside in Southeast Asia, and were responsible for the spread of Theravada Buddhism in Mainland Southeast Asia. The civilizations founded by the Mon were some of the earliest in Thailand as well as Myanmar and Laos. The Mon are regarded as a large exporter of Southeast Asian culture. Historically, many cities in Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos today, including Yangon, Pathum Thani, Lamphun, Lampang, and Vientiane were founded either by the Mon people or Mon rulers.

Mon State (Burmese: မွန်ပြည်နယ်, pronounced [mʊ̀ɴ pjìnɛ̀]; Mon: တွဵုရးဍုင်မန်) is an administrative division of Myanmar. It lies between Kayin State to the east, the Andaman Sea to the west, Bago Region to the north and Tanintharyi Region to the south, also having a short border with Thailand's Kanchanaburi Province at its south-eastern tip. The land area is 12,155 km (4,693 sq mi). The Dawna Range, running along the eastern side of the state in a NNW–SSE direction, forms a natural border with Kayin State. Mon State includes some small islands, such as Kalegauk, Wa Kyun and Kyungyi Island, along its 566 km (352 mi) of coastline. The state's capital is Mawlamyine.

Bago Region (Burmese: ပဲခူးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, pronounced [bəɡó táɪɰ̃ dèθa̰ dʑí]; formerly Pegu Division and Bago Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the southern central part of the country. It is bordered by Magway Region and Mandalay Region to the north; Kayin State, Mon State and the Gulf of Martaban to the east; Yangon Region to the south and Ayeyarwady Region and Rakhine State to the west. It is located between 46°45'N and 19°20'N and 94°35'E and 97°10'E. It has a population of 4,867,373 (2014).

Mandalay Region (Burmese: မန္တလေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, pronounced [máɰ̃dəlé táiɰ̃ dèθa̰ dʑí]; formerly Mandalay Division) is an administrative division of Myanmar. It is located in the center of the country, bordering Sagaing Region and Magway Region to the west, Shan State to the east, and Bago Region and Kayin State to the south. The regional capital is Mandalay. To the south of the region lies the national capital of Naypyidaw. The division consists of eleven districts, which are subdivided into 28 townships and 2,320 wards and village-tracts.

Mandalay Region is important in Myanmar's economy, accounting for 15% of the national economy. It is under the administration of the Mandalay Region Government.

Shan State (Shan: မိူင်းတႆး, Möng Tai; Burmese: ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, pronounced [ʃáɰ̃ pjìnɛ̀]) is a state of Myanmar. Shan State borders China (Yunnan) to the north, Laos (Louang Namtha and Bokeo Provinces) to the east, and Thailand (Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son provinces) to the south, and five administrative divisions of Myanmar in the west (Kachin State, Mandalay Region, Kayin State, Kayah State, and Sagaing Region). The largest of the 14 administrative divisions by land area, Shan State covers 155,800 km, almost a quarter of the total area of Myanmar. The state gets its name from the Burmese name for the Tai peoples: "Shan people". The Tai (Shan) constitute the majority among several ethnic groups that inhabit the area. Shan State is largely rural, with only three cities of significant size: Lashio, Kengtung, and the capital, Taunggyi. Taunggyi is 150.7 kilometres (93.6 mi) northeast of the nation's capital Naypyitaw.

The Shan state, with many ethnic groups, is home to several armed ethnic groups. While the military government has signed ceasefire agreements with most groups, vast areas of the state, especially those east of the Salween River, remain outside the central government's control, and in recent years have come under heavy ethnic-Han Chinese economic and political influence. Other areas are under the control of military groups such as the Shan State Army.

The Shan people (Shan: တႆး, pronounced [taj˥], or Burmese: ရှမ်းလူမျိုး, pronounced [ʃáɰ̃ lùmjó]), also known as the Tai Long (တႆးလူင်, [taj˥.loŋ˨˦]) or Tai Yai, are a Tai ethnic group of Southeast Asia. The Shan are the biggest minority of Burma (Myanmar) and primarily live in the Shan State, but also inhabit parts of Mandalay Region, Kachin State, Kayah State, Sagaing Region and Kayin State, and in adjacent regions of China (Dai people), Laos, Assam and Meghalaya (Ahom people), Cambodia (Kula people), Vietnam and Thailand. Though no reliable census has been taken in Burma since 1935, the Shan are estimated to number 4–6 million, with CIA Factbook giving an estimate of five million spread throughout Myanmar which is about 10% of the overall Burmese population.

'Shan' is a generic term for all Tai-speaking peoples within Myanmar (Burma). The capital of Shan State is Taunggyi, the fifth-largest city in Myanmar with about 390,000 people. Other major cities include Thibaw (Hsipaw), Lashio, Kengtung and Tachileik.

Lethwei (Burmese: လက်ဝှေ့; IPA: [lɛʔ.ʍḛ]) or Burmese boxing is a full contact combat sport originating from Myanmar and is considered one of the most brutal martial arts in the world. Lethwei fighters use stand-up striking techniques such as kicks, knees, elbows and punches, and the use of headbutts is also permitted. Fighters compete bareknuckle, wrapping their hands with only tape and gauze. Disallowed in most combat sports, headbutts are important weapons in a Lethwei fighter's arsenal, giving Lethwei its name of the "Art of nine limbs". In traditional rules, each corner is allowed one two-minute timeout per fight to revive a KO’d fighter. This, combined with its bareknuckle nature, gave Lethwei a reputation for being one of the bloodiest and most violent martial arts. Although popular throughout Myanmar, Lethwei has been primarily and historically associated with the Karen people of the Kayin State; the vast majority of competitive Lethwei fighters are ethnolinguistically of Karen descent.