Rakhine people in the context of Southeast Asians

Buddhism (Burmese: ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ), specifically Theravada branch (Burmese: ထေရဝါဒဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာ), is the official and state religion of Myanmar since 1961, and practiced by nearly 87% of the population. It is the most religious Buddhist country in terms of the proportion of monks in the population and proportion of income spent on religion. With approximately 48 million Buddhists, Myanmar has the third largest Buddhist population in the world, after Thailand and China. Adherents are most likely found among the Bamar, Shan, Rakhine, Mon, Karen, and Chinese who are well integrated into Burmese society. Monks, collectively known as the sangha (community), are venerated members of Burmese society. Among many ethnic groups in Myanmar, including the Bamar and Shan, Theravada Buddhism is practiced in conjunction with the worship of nats, which are spirits who can intercede in worldly affairs. Buddhists in Myanmar are governed by Burmese customary law.

Regarding the practice of Buddhism, two popular practices stand out: merit-making and vipassanā meditation. There is also the less popular weizza path. Merit-making is the most common path undertaken by Burmese Buddhists. This path involves the observance of the Five precepts and accumulation of good merit through charity (dana, often to monks) and good deeds to obtain a favorable rebirth. The meditation path, which has gained ground since the early 20th century, is a form of Buddhist meditation which is seen as leading to awakening and can involve intense meditation retreats. The weizza path is an esoteric system of occult practices (such as recitation of spells, samatha and alchemy) believed to lead to life as a weizza (Burmese: ဝိဇ္ဇာ Pali: vijjā), a semi-immortal and supernatural being who awaits the appearance of the future Buddha, Maitreya (Burmese: အရိမေ‌တ္တေယျ Pali: Arimetteyya).

Arakan (/ˈærəkæn/ or /ˌɑːrəˈkɑːn/; Burmese: ရက္ခိုင် [jəkʰàɪɴ], Rakhine: အာရက္ခ [à.ɹəkʰa̼]), formerly romanized as Aracan, is the historical geographical name for the northeastern coastal region of the Bay of Bengal, covering present-day Bangladesh and Myanmar. Historically known as "Arakan" for several centuries, the region is now generally associated with the geographically smaller Rakhine State, situated in western Myanmar. The people of the region were known as the Arakanese. When Burma gained independence from Britain in 1948, the Burmese part of the region was called Arakan State. The Burmese military junta changed its name to Rakhine State in 1989 – along with the country's name being changed from Burma to Myanmar, and its capital name from Rangoon to Yangon, while Burmese language name remained unchanged as မြန်မာ (Myanmar) and ရန်ကုန် (Yangon).

Arakan's first states can be traced to the 4th century. Arakan was one of the first Indianised kingdoms in Southeast Asia. It was home to the sacred Mahamuni sculpture of Buddha, which was later transferred to Mandalay by Burmese conquerors in the 18th century. For 356 years between 1428 and 1784, Arakan was ruled by the Kingdom of Mrauk U from the city of Mrauk U. In 1784, Arakan was annexed by the Konbaung Dynasty under the reign of King Bodawpaya.

Rakhine State (/rəˈkaɪn/ rə-KYN; Burmese: ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်, MLCTS: ra.hkuing pranynai, pronounced [jəkʰàiɰ̃ pjìnɛ̀]; Rakhine pronunciation: [ɹəkʰàiɰ̃ pɹènè]), formerly known as Arakan State, is a state in Myanmar (Burma). Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State to the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Region to the east, the Bay of Bengal to the west and the Chattogram Division of Bangladesh to the northwest. The north–south Arakan Mountains or Rakhine Yoma separate Rakhine State from central Myanmar. Off the coast of Rakhine State there are some fairly large islands such as Ramree, Cheduba and Myingun. Rakhine State has an area of 36,762 square kilometres (14,194 sq mi) and its capital is Sittwe (formerly known as Akyab).

As of November 2025, the Arakan Army which is the armed wing of the ethnic Rakhine, maintains de facto control over approximately 90 percent of the state, including 14 of its 17 townships.

Myanmar (Burma) is an ethnically diverse nation with 135 distinct ethnic groups officially recognised by the Burmese government, which are grouped into eight "major national ethnic races" — the Bamar, Kayin, Rakhine, Shan, Mon, Chin, Kachin, and Karenni. The Bamar (Burman) make up approximately 68% of the population, while the remainder belongs to various major and minor ethnic and linguistic groups.

The "major national ethnic races" are grouped primarily according to geographic region rather than ethnolinguistic affiliation. For example, the Shan national race includes 33 ethnic groups that live in Shan State and speak languages in at least four language families. Myanmar's contemporary politics around ethnicity surround treating ethnicity as a minoritising discourse, pitting a "pan-ethnic" national identity against minority groups. Often ethnicity identities in practice are flexible — sometimes as flexible as simply changing clothes — in part due to a lack of religious or ethnic stratification prior to British colonialism.

Rakhine (/rəˈkaɪn/; Rakhine: ရခိုင်ဘာသာ, MLCTS: ra.hkuing batha Burmese pronunciation: [ɹəkʰàɪɴ bàθà]), also known as Arakanese, is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in western Myanmar, primarily in the Rakhine State, parts of south-eastern Bangladesh and parts of southern Tripura in India. Closely related to Burmese, the language is spoken by the Rakhine and Marma peoples; it is estimated to have around one million native speakers and it is spoken as a second language by a further million.

Though Arakanese has some similarity with standard Burmese, Burmese speakers find it difficult to communicate with Arakanese speakers. Thus, it is often considered to be a dialect or variety of Burmese. As there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing a language from a dialect, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Arakanese. There are three dialects of Arakanese: Sittwe–Marma (about two thirds of speakers), Ramree, and Thandwe.

The Daingnet people (Burmese: ဒိုင်းနက်လူမျိုး), also known as the Chakma people (Burmese: သက္ကမ) are an ethnic group indigenous to northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. According to their own internal census in 1995 they numbered about 60,000. In 2011, the number is estimated to be around 80,000. From appearance they are indistinguishable from the Rakhine people; however, the Daingnet people have a distinct language and culture. Ethnically, they are closely related to the Chakma people of Bangladesh and Northeast India. The languages of the Daingnet and Chakma people are mutually intelligible. Daingnet people are one of 135 ethnic groups officially recognized by the Myanmar government as indigenous to Myanmar. Daingnets are one of the Tibeto-Burman tribes. Genetically they are closely related to the Tibetans, Burmans and Rakhines.