Toungoo dynasty

The Toungoo dynasty, also spelt Taungoo, ruled Burma (Myanmar) from the early 16th century until 1752. Rising from the small town of Taungoo, its kings reunited the lands of the old Pagan kingdom and, at their peak in the later 16th century, built what has been called probably the largest empire in South-East Asian history. After a collapse around 1600 the dynasty recovered as a smaller, more tightly governed kingdom based at Ava, which is the name our maps give it.

Mingyi Nyo, who is listed as ruler from 1485, founded the dynasty's first empire in 1510 at Taungoo, a town on the Sittaung River south of Ava, as the Ava kingdom was failing. When Shan chiefs led by Mohnyin captured Ava in 1527, many Burmese speakers fled to Taungoo, which became a new centre of Burmese power.

Mingyi Nyo's son Tabinshwehti, who reigned from 1530 to 1550, pushed south, overran the Irrawaddy delta and took Bago, the capital of the Mon Hanthawaddy kingdom. In 1544 he was crowned king of all Burma at the old capital of Bagan, and he moved his seat to Bago to profit from the growing sea trade with European merchants. His campaigns against Arakan in the west and against the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1547–49 both failed, and he was assassinated in 1550 amid revolts.

His brother-in-law Bayinnaung, king from 1550 to 1581, restored and greatly widened the realm. He invaded Manipur in 1560 and Ayutthaya in 1564, and for the first time brought the Shan States under Burmese rule, along with Siam, Lan Xang and Chinese Shan territories. At its height Toungoo claimed overlordship from Assam and Manipur to the borders of Cambodia, and from Arakan to Yunnan. Bayinnaung died in 1581 while preparing to attack the Kingdom of Mrauk U in Arakan.

The empire fell apart within eighteen years of his death. His son Nanda Bayin spent his reign fighting rebellions, while Portuguese incursions troubled the south. The dynasty regrouped under Nyaungyan Min, who reigned from 1599 to 1605, and so the later period is also called the Nyaungyan or Restored Toungoo dynasty. His son Anaukpetlun, king from 1605 to 1628, reunited the country by 1613 and defeated Portuguese attempts to seize Lower Burma. By 1622 the kingdom again included Lower and Upper Burma, the Shan States and Lan Na. Thalun, who reigned from 1629 to 1648, rebuilt the war-damaged land; his revenue inquest of 1635 suggests that around two million people lived in the Irrawaddy valley.

The restored kings, based at Ava, built a legal and political order that lasted well into the 19th century. They replaced hereditary chieftains in the Irrawaddy valley with appointed governors, cut back the rights of Shan chiefs, required senior princes of the provinces to live at court under watch, and expanded the ahmudan system of crown service groups around the capital. From 1635 the crown held regular censuses to track manpower and taxes, and it regulated the Buddhist monkhood of Upper Burma more closely. Theravada Buddhism was the state religion. Trade and these reforms supported more than eight decades of prosperity.

In the 18th century the kingdom weakened under what has been described as the "palace rule" of its kings. From the 1720s Meitei raiders from Manipur raided along the Chindwin River, and Chiang Mai rebelled; in the 1730s the Meitei raids reached deep into central Burma. In 1740 the Mon of Lower Burma rebelled and founded the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom, whose armies captured Ava in 1752, ending the dynasty after 266 years. Historians point to factional strife at court, disputed successions and the uneven effects of trade and inflation on the elite's income.

Our 1650, 1700 and 1715 maps label the restored kingdom "Ava", covering most of today's Myanmar; the outline is approximate. Earlier maps of the region show the Pagan Kingdom up to 1400, and by 1783 our maps show Burma under its successor dynasty.