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Thaton

Moncity

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Thaton

Total population

130,763

Elevation24 m
Coordinates16.91°, 97.37°

Demographic figures from Central Statistical Organization (Myanmar). Overview below cites Wikipedia and may reference a different year.

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City facts

Elevation
24 m

Facts from Wikidata (CC0).

Overview

Thaton is a town in Mon State, in southern Myanmar on the Tenasserim plains. Thaton lies along the National Highway 8 and is also connected by the National Road 85. It is 230 kilometres (140 mi) southeast of Yangon and 70 kilometres (43 mi) north of Mawlamyine. Thaton was the capital of Thaton Kingdom from at least the 4th century BC to the middle of the 11th century AD.

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History & geography

History

Thaton was the capital of the Thaton Kingdom, a Mon Kingdom which ruled present day Lower Burma between the 4th and 11th centuries. Like the Burmans and the Thais, some modern Mons have tried to identify their ethnicity and, specifically this kingdom at Thaton, with the semi-historical kingdom of Suwarnabhumi ("The Golden Land"); today, this claim is contested by many different ethnicities in south-east Asia, and contradicted by scholars. In the kingdom of Dvaravati, Thaton was an important seaport on the Gulf of Martaban, for trade with India and Sri Lanka. Shin Arahan, also called Dhammadassi, a monk born in Thaton and raised and educated in Nakhon Pathom, an old capital of the Mon kingdom of Dvaravadi, now in Thailand, took Theravada Buddhism north to the Burmese kingdom of Bagan. In 1057, King Anawrahta of Bagan conquered Thaton. However, Michael Aung-Thwin, has disputed the entire traditional narrative of a "Thaton Kingdom" and its conquest by Anawrahta. No contemporary inscriptions refer to Thaton or its conquest by Anawrahta, and the full version of the conquest story does not appear in later chronicles until U Kala's Mahayazawingyi, written in the early 1700s. Aung-Thwin also disputes the existence of Thaton itself during this time period, writing that "it is not even certain that the area... was not under the ocean" during the first millennium CE, since the shoreline likely would have been much farther inland at the time. The first undisputed mention of Thaton is in the 1479 Kalyani Inscriptions, which were written in the Middle Mon language and attributed to Dhammazedi. This inscription uses "Sudhuim", which is the usual Mon form of the name. The inscriptions record the renovation of the stupas under Kyanzittha. An urban site at Thaton was excavated…

Geography

Thaton is located on a "fanlike" area at the foot of an elongated mountain spur, with the coast to the west. There is a significant slope within the city, from 43 m above sea level at the northeast corner to 9 m in the southwest. Just south of Thaton, the mountain range opens up and there is a valley 20 km long offering passage to Hpa-an and eventually over the Three Pagodas Pass to central Thailand. Besides the mountain range, there are also eight smaller hills that form a low arc around the city. Seven of these are located on the west and south, which conveniently provide protection against flooding on the side that is otherwise exposed to the sea. The eighth hill, Neimindara, is on the northeast. It is thought to have been a key strategic point in pre-cannon times, and "the troops that held this hill controlled the city". }}

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Excerpted from the corresponding Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA).

Geography

Latitude
16.9137
Longitude
97.3690
Water area
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Coordinates & boundaries from the US Census TIGER/Line shapefiles.

Climate

Air quality

Walkability

Amenities nearby

Wildlife & biodiversity

Earthquake history

Photos

Sights & places nearby

Notable people from here

Nearby places in Mon

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Geography & sun

Avg solar (kWh/m²/day)
4.94
Annual solar (kWh/m²)
1,805

Elevation, sunrise/sunset and daylight from Open-Meteo. Solar climatology from NASA POWER.

Nearby airports

Public attention

Wikipedia views (last 30 days)
403
Avg daily Wikipedia views
13
Attention level
Obscure

Pageview totals from the Wikimedia Pageviews API.

Books about Thaton

Search results from Open Library.

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Sources

  • Wikipedia
  • Wikidata
  • Open-Meteo / sunrise-sunset.org
  • Wikipedia Pageviews API
  • Open Library