Naypyidaw, since 6 November 2005, when the government moved there from Yangon with almost no warning. Yangon is still much the largest city and was the capital under its older name, Rangoon.
Myanmar's capital changed within living memory, in a way that few outside the country noticed at the time.
On 6 November 2005, at an hour chosen by astrologers, convoys of government lorries left Yangon for a construction site 320 kilometres north, near the town of Pyinmana. Civil servants were given days. The new capital was given its name, Nay Pyi Taw, meaning "abode of kings", at a military parade on 27 March 2006.
The city had been under construction since 2002 and almost nothing about it had been announced.
No full explanation has ever been given. The reasons usually offered are a central location better placed to reach the border regions, a site away from the coast and less exposed to invasion or unrest, and the long precedent of Burmese rulers founding new capitals.
Naypyidaw is built on an enormous scale: twenty-lane roads, separate zones for ministries, hotels and the military, and a population spread so thinly across so much space that the roads are famously empty. The parliament, the presidential palace, the ministries and the Supreme Court are all there.
Yangon, called Rangoon in English until 1989, has about 5.4 million people and remains the commercial centre and the main port. It was the capital of British Burma and of independent Burma from 1948 until 2005.
Naypyidaw belongs with Brasília, Canberra and Abuja as a capital built rather than chosen.
The places above come from GeoNames, reconciled against Wikidata. Last checked 21 September 2026. How we know · Suggest a correction