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Burma (Myanmar)
Region: South-Eastern Asia
Population (2006)1: 47,758,181 Land Area2: 251,000 Life Expectancy3: 60.2 Per capita income3: -- |
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Indexes4
Largest Religious Groups
History
Britain conquered Burma over a period of 62 years (1824-1886) and incorporated it into its Indian Empire. Burma was administered as a province of India until 1937 when it became a separate, self-governing colony; independence from the Commonwealth was attained in 1948. Gen. NE WIN dominated the government from 1962 to 1988, first as military ruler, then as self-appointed president, and later as political kingpin. Despite multiparty legislative elections in 1990 that resulted in the main opposition party - the National League for Democracy (NLD) - winning a landslide victory, the ruling junta refused to hand over power. NLD leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient AUNG SAN SUU KYI, who was under house arrest from 1989 to 1995 and 2000 to 2002, was imprisoned in May 2003 and subsequently transferred to house arrest, where she remains virtually incommunicado. In November 2005, the junta extended her detention for at least another six months. Her supporters, as well as all those who promote democracy and improved human rights, are routinely harassed or jailed.
Sources
Note: All country profiles, maps, and flags are taken from The World Factbook, 2005.
1. The U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base (IDB) is a computerized data bank containing statistical tables of demographic data for 228 countries and areas of the world.
2. The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom report is submitted to Congress annually by the Department of State in compliance with Section 102(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. This report supplements the most recent Human Rights Reports by providing additional detailed information with respect to matters involving international religious freedom. It includes individual country chapters on the status of religious freedom worldwide. A dataset with these and the other international measures highlighted on the country pages can be downloaded from this website. These State Department reports are open source.
3. The United Nations Human Development Reports provide data and statistical analysis in various areas of human development. The Human Development Report (HDR) presents two types of statistics: the human development indicator tables, which provide a global assessment of country achievements in different areas of human development, and thematic statistical analysis. A dataset with these and the other international measures highlighted on the country pages can be downloaded from this website. Used with permission.
4. The article by Brian Grim and Roger Finke describes the coding of the U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom reports. This variable was coded from the reports for 2005. Under their supervision, additional years of the reports are currently being coded by researchers at the Association of Religion Data Archives. Smaller countries not covered by the State Department Reports were coded by researchers at the World Christian Database under the supervision of Todd Johnson, drawing on information from Oxford Press’s World Christian Encyclopedia. A dataset with these and the other international measures highlighted on the country pages can be downloaded from this website. Used with permission.
