Lower Burma in the context of Rakhine State

The British Raj (/rɑːdʒ/ RAHJ; from Hindustani rāj, 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent, lasting from 1858 to 1947. It is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India. The region under British control was commonly called India in contemporaneous usage and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British paramountcy, called the princely states. The region was sometimes called the Indian Empire, though not officially. As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations and a founding member of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. India was a participating state in the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936.

This system of governance was instituted on 28 June 1858, when, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (who, in 1876, was proclaimed Empress of India). It lasted until 1947 when the British Raj was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People's Republic of Bangladesh in the 1971 Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence). At the inception of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in 1886, and the resulting union, Burma, was administered as an autonomous province until 1937, when it became a separate British colony, gaining its independence in 1948. It was renamed Myanmar in 1989. The Chief Commissioner's Province of Aden was also part of British India at the inception of the British Raj and became a separate colony known as Aden Colony in 1937 as well.

Anaukbaklun (Burmese: အနောက်ဘက်လွန် [ʔənaʊʔ pʰɛʔ lʊ̀ɰ̃]; 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 the 16th century. In his 22-year reign from 1606 to 1628, Anaukpetlun completed the reunification efforts begun by his father, King Nyaungyan. Having inherited a partial kingdom comprising mainly Upper Burma and the Shan States from his father, Anaukpetlun went on to reconquer Lan Na in the east, and in the south, Lower Burma from rival Burmese factions and the Portuguese, as well as the Upper Tenasserim from the Ayutthaya Kingdom. The kingdom was known as the Restored Taungoo Kingdom or Nyaungyan Dynasty.

Pyay, and formerly anglicised as Prome, is the principal town of Pyay Township in the Bago Region in Myanmar. Pyay is located on the bank of the Irrawaddy River, 260 km (160 mi) north-west of Yangon. It is an important trade center for the Ayeyarwady Delta, Central and Upper Myanmar and the Rakhine (Arakan) State. The British Irrawaddy Flotilla Company established the current town in the late 19th century on the Irrawaddy as a transshipment point for cargo between Upper and Lower Burma. Pyay is also the terminus of Yangon-Pyay Railway which is the first railway line in Burma (Myanmar) opened on 1 May 1877. The English novelist Jane Austen's brother Rear Admiral Charles Austen died here in 1852. Shin Raṭṭhasāra, a Buddhist monk and prominent classical poet during the Kingdom of Ava also died here in 1529 and a mausoleum was constructed to honor him.

The district of Pyay encompasses the valley of the Irrawaddy, located between Thayet, Hinthada and Tharrawaddy districts. Along the western side of Pyay District are the Arakan Mountains and along the eastern side are the Pegu Range. Pyay District's main towns are Pyay, Shwetaung, and Paungde.

The Thaton kingdom, Suwarnabhumi, or Thuwunnabumi (Burmese: သထုံခေတ် [θətʰòʊɰ̃ kʰɪʔ] or သုဝဏ္ဏဘူမိ [θṵwəna̰ bʊ̀mḭ]) was a Mon kingdom, believed to have existed in Lower Burma from at least the 4th century BC to the middle of the 11th century AD. One of many Mon kingdoms that existed in modern-day Lower Burma and Thailand, the kingdom was essentially a city-state centered on the city of Thaton. It traded directly with South India and Sri Lanka, and became a primary center of Theravada Buddhism in South-East Asia. Thaton, like other Mon kingdoms, faced the gradual encroachment of the Khmer Empire. But it was the Pagan kingdom from the north that conquered the fabled kingdom in 1057.

The Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom (Burmese: ဟံသာဝတီ နေပြည်တော်သစ်), also known as the Neo-Ramanic State (Burmese: ရာမညနိုင်ငံသစ်) was the kingdom that ruled Lower Burma and parts of Upper Burma from 1740 to 1757. The kingdom grew out of a rebellion by the Mon led population of Pegu, who then rallied the other Mon as well as Delta Bama and Karens of Lower Burma, against the Toungoo Dynasty of Ava in Upper Burma. The rebellion succeeded in expelling Toungoo loyalists and restored the Mon-speaking Kingdom of Hanthawaddy which ruled Lower Burma from 1287 to 1539. The restored Hanthawady kingdom also claim heritage to Bayinaung's early Toungoo Empire whose capital was based in Pegu and guaranteed the loyalty of the non-Mon population of Lower Burma. Supported by the French, the upstart kingdom quickly carved out a space for itself in Lower Burma, and continued its push northward. In March 1752, its forces captured Ava, and ended the 266-year-old Toungoo dynasty.

A new dynasty called Konbaung led by King Alaungpaya rose in Upper Burma to challenge the southern forces, and went on to conquer all of Upper Burma by December 1753. After Hanthawaddy's invasion of Upper Burma failed in 1754, the kingdom came unglued. Its leadership in self-defeating measures killed off the Toungoo royal family, and persecuted loyal ethnic Burmans in the south, both of which only strengthened Alaungpaya's hand. In 1755, Alaungpaya invaded Lower Burma. Konbaung forces captured the Irrawaddy delta in May 1755, the French defended port of Thanlyin in July 1756, and finally the capital Pegu in May 1757.

The Third Anglo-Burmese War (Burmese: တတိယအင်္ဂလိပ်–မြန်မာစစ်, romanized: Tatiya Ingaleik–Myanma Sit), also known as the Third Burma War (7–29 November 1885), sporadic resistance continuing into 1887. It was the final of three wars fought in the 19th century between the Burmese and the British. The war saw the loss of sovereignty of an independent Burma under the Konbaung dynasty, whose rule had already been reduced to the territory known as Upper Burma, the region of Lower Burma having been annexed by the British in 1853, following the Second Anglo-Burmese War.

Following the war, Burma came under the rule of the British Raj as one of its provinces. From 1937, the British governed Burma as a separate colony until Burma achieved independence as a republic in 1948.