Kachin State (;
Jingphaw Mungdaw), is the northernmost
state of
Burma. It is bordered by
China to the north and east;
Shan State to the south; and
Sagaing Division and
India to the west. It lies between north latitude 23° 27' and 28° 25' longitude 96° 0' and 98° 44'. The area of Kachin State is . The capital of the state is
Myitkyina. Other important towns include
Bhamo.
Kachin State has Myanmar’s highest mountain,
Hkakabo Razi (), forming the southern tip of the
Himalayas, and Southeast Asia’s largest inland lake,
Indawgyi Lake.
Demographics
The majority of the state's 1.2 million inhabitants are ethnic
Kachin, also known as
Jinghpaw,
Rawang,
Lisu,
Zaiwa,
Lawngwaw,
Lachyit, and the state is officially home to other ethnic groups such as
Bamar, and
Shan. Official government statistics state that the distribution by religion is 57.8%
Buddhist, 36.4%
Christian. The Kachin language is the
lingua franca in the State, and has a written version based on the
Roman alphabet. There is also a small number of
Tibetans living in some villages of Kachin State.
Economy
The economy of Kachin State is predominantly agricultural. The main products include
rice,
sugar cane. Mineral products include
gold and
jade.
Transport
Kachin State is served by the following airports:
Kachin state has invaluable natural resources. However, the people living in Kachin State has little benefit of their own natural resources. The land is under serious environmental problem. The people who exploit the country are mostly Chinese.
Most area of Kachin state is very much under developed. Many people are still engaged in agriculture. Moreover, they have little knowledge to exploit their own natural resources.
Under the government regime, government exploit the country by taking various timber land. Although the government has been extracting the natural resources of the Kachin people, there is no development in infrastructure and health care and other basic necessities of the people.
Education
Educational opportunities in Myanmar are extremely limited outside the main cities of
Yangon and
Mandalay. It is especially a problem in Kayin State where constant fighting between the government and insurgents for over 60 years has produced thousands of refugees and internally displaced people. The following is a summary of the education system in the state.
Health care
The general state of health care in Myanmar is poor. The military government spends anywhere from 0.5% to 3% of the country's GDP on health care, consistently ranking among the lowest in the world. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals lack many of the basic facilities and equipment. In general, the health care infrastructure outside of
Yangon and
Mandalay is extremely poor but is especially worse in remote areas like Kachin State. The following is a summary of the public health care system in the state.
History
thumb|Aung SanThe Burmese government under
Aung San reached the
Panglong Agreement with the Shan, Kachin, and Chin peoples on
12 February 1947. The agreement accepted "Full autonomy in internal administration for the Frontier Areas" in principle and envisioned the creation of a Kachin State by the Constituent Assembly. Kachin State was formed in 1948 out of the
British Burma civil districts of
Bhamo and
Myitkyina, together with the larger northern district of
Puta-o. The vast mountainous hinterlands are predominantly
Kachin, whereas the more densely populated railway corridor and southern valleys are mostly
Shan and
Bamar. The northern frontier was not demarcated and until the 1960s
Chinese governments had claimed the northern half of Kachin State as Chinese territory since the 18th century. Before the British rule, roughly 75% of all Kachin
jadeite ended up in China, where it was prized much more highly that the local Chinese
nephrite.
Kachin troops formerly formed a significant part of the Burmese army. With the unilateral abrogation of the
Union of Burma constitution by the
Ne Win regime in 1962, Kachin forces withdrew and formed the
Kachin Independence Army (KIA) under the
Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). Aside from the major towns and railway corridor, Kachin State has been virtually independent from the mid 1960s through 1994, with an economy based on
smuggling, jade trade with China and
narcotics. After a Myanmar army offensive in 1994 seized the jade mines from the KIO, a peace treaty was signed, permitting continued KIO effective control of most of the State, under aegis of the Myanmar military. This ceasefire immediately resulted in the creation of numerous splinter factions from the KIO and KIA of groups opposed to the peace accord, and the political landscape remains highly unstable.
Traditional Kachin society was based on shifting hill agriculture. Political authority was based on chieftains who depended on support from immediate kinsmen. Considerable attention has been given by anthropologists of the Kachin custom of maternal cousin marriage, wherein it is permissible for a man to marry his mother’s brother’s daughter, but not with the father’s sister’s daughter. Traditional religion was animist, but missionary activity since the British period have converted the vast majority of the population to
Christianity (notably
Baptist and pockets of
Roman Catholicism).
See also
