Bagan — archaeological site
Image by LuisValiente from Pixabay

Bagan

  • 2 min read
  • 21.172° N 94.860° E
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • An inscription of 1112 at the Myazedi pagoda repeats the same text in Pyu, Old Mon, Old Burmese and Pali, earning it the nickname 'Rosetta Stone of Burma'.
  • Bagan's builders mastered true brick vaulting in the 11th century, a technique that did not become widespread in India until the late 12th century.
  • In classical Pali texts the city was called Arimaddanapura, 'the city that tramples on enemies', and its surrounding land Tattadesa, 'the parched land'.
  • Between 1904 and 1975 more than 400 earthquakes were recorded in the Bagan area, long before the quakes that toppled monuments in 1975 and 2016.
  • At its height the capital is estimated to have been home to somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 people.
  • The Pagan Empire collapsed in 1287 amid repeated Mongol invasions, and the city lost its role as a royal capital by the end of the 13th century.
  • King Htilominlo's Mahabodhi temple of around 1218 is a smaller copy of the famous Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya in India, where the Buddha attained enlightenment.
  • Some late temples use a pentagonal plan, adding a fifth side so the future Buddha Maitreya could be venerated alongside the four Buddhas of the present age.
  • After the 15th century fewer than 200 new temples were built, and pilgrims concentrated on a score of famous shrines while thousands of others crumbled.
  • Medieval Bagan was a centre of Pali scholarship, drawing monks and students from India, Sri Lanka and the Khmer Empire to study grammar, law and medicine.

Why it is worth it

On a bend of the Irrawaddy in central Myanmar, a dry plain of 104 square kilometres is studded with brick towers and gilded spires as far as the eye can see. Bagan was the capital of the Pagan kingdom from the ninth to the thirteenth century, and after King Anawrahta came to the throne in 1044 and championed Theravada Buddhism, which he had embraced under the Mon monk Shin Arahan, the city and its patrons raised more than ten thousand temples, stupas and monasteries. The remains of over 2,200 still stand, from tiny shrines barely taller than a man to vast pyramidal temples, making Bagan one of the densest sacred landscapes on earth. UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 2019.

The monuments trace the evolution of an architecture across two centuries. The Shwezigon, begun under Anawrahta and finished in 1102, set the gilded bell-shaped form that became the prototype for stupas across Myanmar, and the Shwesandaw dates from 1057. The Ananda temple of 1105, white stucco under a golden spire, has at its core a cube with four standing Buddhas, each about 9.5 metres tall, facing the four cardinal points. The Thatbyinnyu of around 1150 is the tallest of all at 66 metres, while the brooding Dhammayangyi, built in 1167–1170, is the most massive. The Sulamani of 1183 and the Htilominlo of 1218 carry the style into its last great phase, and inside many of the temples the walls still bear faded paintings of the life of the Buddha.

Earthquakes have repeatedly reshaped the plain. The quake of 8 July 1975 brought down many monuments, among them the original Bupaya pagoda on the riverbank, and another in August 2016 damaged nearly four hundred temples. Restoration has left its own mark: UNESCO turned down a first nomination in 1996, citing inauthentic rebuilding, and recognition had to wait another twenty-three years. None of this diminishes the view at dawn, when mist lies over the fields, the spires rise out of it one behind another, and hot-air balloons drift over the plain.

Getting there

The archaeological zone lies next to the town of Nyaung-U, about 6 km from the central temples, the usual base for visits. Nyaung U Airport (NYU), around twenty minutes by taxi from the monuments, has domestic flights; the nearest international gateway is Mandalay (MDL), about 130 km away in a straight line.

Plan your visit

We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.

Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Mandalay 7The Most Beautiful Places in Myanmar 18The Most Remarkable Ancient Archaeological Sites 36The Greatest Ancient Archaeological Wonders 52The Most Remarkable Ancient Places 78The Most Remarkable UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Sites 114The Greatest UNESCO-Listed Archaeological Wonders 149The Most Remarkable Archaeological Sites 193The Greatest Archaeological Wonders 306The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

Bagan is an ancient city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Pagan Kingdom, the first kingdom that unified the regions that would later constitute Myanmar. During the kingdom's height between the 11th and 13th centuries, more than 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of over 2,200 temples and pagodas survive.

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21.17250, 94.86000per Wikidata