City of Cultural Diversity: Mandalay

Mandalay is the second largest city (after Yangon), and a former capital of Myanmar. The city is the economic and religious hub of upper Myanmar. The city is centred around the Royal Palace, and has wide lanes filled with bicycles and motorcycles. Mandalay is known for its millionaires, its monks (half of the country's monks reside in Mandalay and surrounding areas), and its cultural diversity.

Mandalay, the very name evokes the splendors of the Burma of old! But, most people will be surprised to learn that Mandalay is not an old city, not even a medieval one, but rather a new city that was created by King Mingdon Min of Burma in 1857 as the new capital of the kingdom of Ava. Only two Burmese kings ruled from there, King Mingdon and King Thibaw, before the British conquest of Upper Burma in 1885. History records it as a city of splendor between 1858 and 1885 but most of the magnificence is gone, destroyed by the fire that consumes wooden structures, by the cavalier attitudes of its colonial rulers, and by intensive bombing by the allies during the reconquest of Burma in the Second World War.

The city, neatly planned with its lettered roads and numbered streets, is a British creation. The once magnificent Royal Palace and the great Atumashi (incomparable) pagoda, King Mingdon Min's finest creations, are modern reconstructions supervised by the ruling Military junta with the help of forced labor. Today, Mandalay lies at the end of the Lashio Road and it is, by Burmese standards, relatively prosperous as a center for trade with China and as a center for the growing trade with India.

Mandalay is ethnically diverse, with the Bamar (Burmans) forming a slight majority. In recent years, there has been a major influx of Chinese from Mainland China, and the Chinese (both recent migrants and colonial-era immigrants) form 30 to 40% of the population. Their influence is seen in the China-style glass buildings throughout the city. Other prevalent ethnic groups include the Shan, who are ethnically and linguistically related to the Thais and Laotians, and the Karen (Kayin). There is a sizable ethnic Indian population, including Nepalis and Sikhs.

Article source: http://wikitravel.org/en/Mandalay