Language, place names and people’s names
Myanmar is a hugely diverse country with many different ethnic and language groups. Burmese is the main language, but English is spoken by many people in cities and tourist areas (to varying degrees of proficiency); most hotels and tour agencies have some staff with a reasonable level of understanding.
Because of Myanmar’s diversity and its colonial past, most places have two or more names that you might find used in newspapers, on the internet, on maps and in literature – the most prominent being the name of the country itself, which is referred to as both Myanmar and Burma. However, in Myanmar, almost everyone uses the name Myanmar. On this website, the locally-used name is the one that is used first – if a place has alternative names, we also provide them.
Spellings sometimes vary in Myanmar; this inconsistency is most challenging for visitors when it applies to hotels and road names. But if you bear this in mind, it is not too difficult to work out, as it is usually only one or two letters that are different. Also, because there is only one word for ‘road’, ‘street’ and ‘lane’ in Burmese (làn), English-language maps in Myanmar tend to be inconsistent in their usage of the three English words.