Mon State Travel Package Tours, Myanmar Tour Information Hotel Guide

MON STATE OVERVIEW

Geography	Demographics	Telephone
Capital: Mawlamyaing Location: Southern Area: 12,155 km2	Population: 2,466,000 Density: 202/ km2 Ethnicities: Mon,Bamar,Anglo-Burmese, Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Rakhine Shan	Calling code
Town and Districts
ChaungSone,Kyikehto,Kyaikmaraw,Ye,Tanbyuzayat,Thaton

General Information

Mon State is an administrative division of Myanmar. It is sandwiched between Kayin State on the east, the Andaman Sea on the west, Bago Division on the north and Tanintharyi Division on the south. It has a short border with Thailand's Kanchanaburi Province at its south-eastern tip. The land area is 12,155 km2. Mon State includes many small islands along its 566 km of coastline. Its capital is Mawlamyine, formerly Moulmein.
The Kyaikhtiyo Pagoda or the Golden Rock is a major attraction located in the state. There are lots of visitors from all over the country , who visit this place during the festival time. The festival is usually in December.

History
Humans lived in the region that is now Myanmar as early as 11,000 years ago, but the first identifiable civilisation is that of the Mon. The Mon probably began migrating into the area southward from western China in the period from 3000 BC to 1500 BCand settled in the Chao Phraya River basin of southern Thailand around the 6th century AD.[citation needed] The Mon moved westward into the Irrawaddy River delta of southern Myanmar in the ensuing centuries. Mon tradition holds that the Suwarnabhumi mentioned in the Edicts of Ashoka and the D�pavamsa was their first kingdom (pronounced Suvanna Bhoum), founded around the port of Thaton in about 300 BC, however, this is disputed by scholars. Oral tradition suggests that they had contact with Buddhism via seafaring as early as the 3rd century BC, though definitely by the 2nd century BC when they received an envoy of monks from Ashoka, and the Mon converted to Theravada Buddhism sometime before the sixth century [1], and they adopted the Indian Pali script. Much of the Mon's written records have been destroyed through wars. The Mons blended Indian and Mon cultures together in a hybrid of the two civilisations. By 825 they had firmly established themselves in southern and southeastern Myanmar and founded the cities of Bago (Pegu) and Thaton, and by the mid-9th century, they had come to dominate all of southern Myanmar.

Mon kingdoms (9th-11th/13th-16th/18th centuries)
The first recorded kingdom that can undisputedly be attributed to the Mon was Dvaravati which prospered until around 1000 AD when their capital was sacked by the Khmer Empire and most of the inhabitants fled west to present-day Burma and eventually founded new kingdoms. These, too, eventually came under pressure from new ethnic groups arriving from the north.

Advent of the British
Lower Burma, including what is now Mon State, was conquered by Great Britain in 1824 after the Second Anglo-Burmese War. The Mon assisted the British in the war, in return for promises of their own leadership after the defeat of Burma.　Hundreds of thousands of Mons who had migrated into Siam returned to their homeland when it came under British rule. However, British promises to restore the Mon Kingdom were never fulfilled. During colonial times, Moulmein had a substantial Anglo-Burmese population; an area of the city was known as 'Little England' due to the large Anglo-Burmese community, however nowadays this has dwindled to all but a handful of families as most have left for the UK or Australia.

Burmese independence
In 1947, the Mon sought self-determination from the yet unformed Union of Burma; however Burmese Prime Minister U Nu refused, saying that no separate national rights for the Mon should be contemplated. The Burmese army moved into areas claimed by the Mon nationalists and imposed rule by force which resulted in a civil war. Mon separatists formed the Mon Peoples Front, which was later superseded by the New Mon State Party (NMSP) in 1962. Since 1949, the eastern hills of the state (as well as portions of Thaninthaya Division) have been under control of the NMSP, and its military arm, the Mon National Liberation Front (MNLF). In addition to fighting the central government, the MNLF has also fought the Karen people over control of lucrative border crossings into Thailand.
In 1974, partially to assuage Mon separatist demands, the theoretically autonomous Mon State, was created out of portions of Thaninthayi Division, Bago Division, and Ayeyarwady Division. Resistance continued until 1995, when NMSP and SLORC agreed a cease-fire and in 1996, the Mon Unity League was founded. SLORC troops continued to operate in defiance of the agreement. The human rights situation in Mon State has not improved. International organizations have repeatedly accused the Myanmar government for massive human rights violations in Mon State, including forced labor, arbitrary detention, population transfer, property confiscation, rape, etc.