Myanmar, the name of the nation formerly known as Burma, is located in Southeast Asia on the Bay of Bengal. Officially called The Union of Myanmar, the nation is the largest country by geographical area in Southeast Asia and shares borders with Bangladesh to the west, India to the northwest, China to the north, Laos to the east, and Thailand to the southeast.

1. AKA: Burma
2. Capital: Rangoon (Yangon)
3. Government: Military Junta
4. Population: 50,519,000 (February 2009)
5. Currency: Myanma Kyat|Myanma kyat (MMK)
6. Official Exchange Rate: 1 USD = 6.25750 MMK (February 2009)
7. Religion: Buddhist, Christian, Muslim
8. Official Language: Burmese
9. Literacy: 83 percent
10. Life expectancy: 57

After the end of British rule in South and Southeast Asia in 1948, what is today called Myanmar became an independent nation known as Burma. An ethnically diverse nation, Burma struggled to institute a stable democracy until a military coup, led by General Ne Win in 1962, took control of the government. A military junta has ruled Burma ever since, and in 1989, the junta officially changed the name of the nation to Myanmar with the justification that Burma was a colloquial name provided by the British. However, groups inside and outside of Myanmar who oppose the rule of the junta continue to refer to the nation as Burma.

In democratic elections held in 1990, opposition activist Aung San Suu Kyi won the popular vote, but the returns were annulled by the military government and Suu Kyi has been under various forms of house arrest in Rangoon ever since. In 2007 peaceful pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks were crushed by the military leadership.

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