History of Yangon:
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Yangon at a glance
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Attractions
In 1755, King Alaungpaya (the founder of Kon-Baung Dynasty) accomplished his military campaign to reunite the whole of Myanmar, following his conquest of Dagon. At that time, Dagon was no more than a village or a small town. The king realized that the conquest of Dagon implied a total victory over Lower Myanmar because of its strategic location. Accordingly, he renamed the town Yangon which literally means end of strife. Afterwards, the town went by the name of Yangon for nearly a century. In 1851, however, the British annexation of Yangon resulted in getting the town
re-founded. And the name also was changed to Rangoon. Since then, the city has been designated as the capital of Myanmar and known to the world as Rangoon. The new city was
modeled and constructed by Lieutenant Fraser, a British Officer of the Engineering Corps who, it was believed, also designed and constructed Singapore. The city was laid out on a chess-board pattern with wide roads running North to South and East to West. The city grew rapidly, on a grid pattern around the central point of Sule Pagoda, which makes an excellent landmark in the downtown area because of its 46m high golden zedi. Most of the old colonial buildings are now occupied by Government offices. The massive City Hall is built of stone and has a distinctive Burmese flavor, in particular the traditional peacock seal above the entrance. The Supreme Court and High Court buildings, and the Railway Administration Building, are also magnificent and reminiscent of days gone by. Famous thoroughfares of the city include Strand Road, Merchant Street and Mahabandoola
Street - along which you can see pastel-painted shop houses.
