Ingapu

Ingapu lies beside the Ngawun River in the northern approaches to the Irrawaddy delta. Its setting linked the river country around Myanaung with the wider lowland world of Pathein. Local traditions place it among the thirty-two villages associated with the legendary king Samuddha Gotha and Queen Omar Dhanti. Those stories explain its relationship with Pathein's sacred geography, but cannot provide a secure date for the town's foundation.

By the Konbaung period, the group of villages was known as Okpho and was assigned to Thihaboh Min following Alaungpaya's conquests. The name Okpho, meaning a brick kiln, was connected in local legend with the making of bricks for Pathein's Shwemokhtaw Pagoda. This history gives the locality a more specific place in lower Burmese traditions than the general description of a delta farming town. River traffic connected it to surrounding settlements and changing royal authority. For the period ending in 1837, Okpho is therefore an important historical name to retain; the British restoration of the name Ingapu came only after that period.