Rakhine

Arakan is a historic coastal region in Southeast Asia. Its borders faced the Bay of Bengal to its west, the Indian subcontinent to its north and Burma proper to its east. The Arakan Mountains isolated the region and made it accessible only by the Indian subcontinent and the sea. The region now forms the Rakhine State in Myanmar.

Arakan became one of the earliest regions in Southeast Asia to embrace Dharmic religions, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism. Islam arrived with Arab merchants in the 8th century. The Kingdom of Mrauk U emerged as an independent Arakanese kingdom for 300 years. During the Age of Discovery and Bengal Subah’s major economic development, Arakan caught the interest of the Dutch East India Company and the Portuguese Empire. In the middle of the 17th century, it was dominated by the Islamic Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. Arakan steadily declined from the 18th century onwards after its loss to the Mughal Empire.

After conquest by the British East India Company, Arakan became one of the divisions of British India and received settlers from the neighboring Chittagong Division of the Bengal Presidency. In 1937, it became a division of British Burma. Arakan Division was once a leading rice exporter. During the Second World War, the region was occupied by Imperial Japan. The Allied Forces liberated Arakan during the Burma Campaign. It continued to be an administrative division after Burmese independence; and later became a province. In the early 1960s, the northern part of Arakan was governed from Rangoon as the Mayu Frontier District.