CHAPTER I
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Though politically and administratively included in the Indian empire, Burma is definitely separated from India geographically and its people differ from the people of India in race, speech, religion and manners. It may almost be said to be a part of India merely by accident. Separated from the peninsula by the sea and by ranges of hills, it comprises a distinct nation.
The remotest province of the Indian Empire, lying between 9° 58′ and 28° 30′ N. lat. and 92° 11′ and 101° 91′ E. long., it comprises an area of 261,839 square miles, in extent exceeding either France or Germany and far surpassing any other Indian Province. Its extreme length is over 1200 miles; its utmost breadth 575 miles. The whole territory is distributed into Burma proper, 164,411; Shan States, 54,728; Chin Hills[1], 11,700; unadministered tracts (estimated), 31,700 square miles[2]. A convenient division, in daily use, is into Upper and Lower Burma. The latter embraces all the country annexed in 1826 and 1852, that is to say, the Arakan and Tenasserim and the Pegu (now the Pegu and Irrawaddy) Divisions, including the whole of the sea-coast. The rest of the Province, that part which up to 1885 constituted the Burmese kingdom, is known as Upper Burma.
Lying on the east of the Bay of Bengal, Burma stretches from the borders of Tibet, Assam, Manipur and Chittagong on the north and north-west to the frontier of Siam. Northward from Victoria Point, the south-eastern extremity, the
