Mrauk U

Mrauk U was the royal capital of Arakan, set among hills, waterways and marshes near the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal. Its rulers used the natural landscape as part of the city's defences and built stone temples and stupas across the surrounding hills. Rivers and canals joined the capital to the Kaladan and Lemro, giving its merchants access to the sea.

King Min Saw Mon founded the city around 1430 after recovering his throne with support from Bengal. Arakan's court maintained contacts with the sultanates to the west while patronizing Buddhism. In the sixteenth century King Min Bin expanded the kingdom and built the Shitthaung temple, commemorating his victories. Portuguese soldiers and merchants joined a cosmopolitan port where people from Bengal, Southeast Asia and Europe met. Arakan's fleets carried trade and warfare across the bay, including raids that brought captives from Bengal. Dutch merchants bought rice and enslaved people during the seventeenth century. The loss of Chittagong to the Mughals in 1666 weakened the kingdom's position, and internal struggles followed. Burmese forces conquered Mrauk U in 1784, ending the independence of the Arakanese court and carrying away the revered Mahamuni image.