Myanmar, a once poor and backward country, has invested 4 billion US dollars to build a modern capital in the remote mountains and forests.
This $4 billion investment may not be much in other countries, but for Myanmar's economy at that time, it was equivalent to two-thirds of its total GDP.
This new capital is called Naypyidaw.
Even before the relocation, the outside world and the people inside Myanmar did not realize that the capital was going to be relocated, until the next day they realized that their capital had changed places!
Now, despite more than 20 years of development, Naypyidaw is still unpopular with the public, and the streets are deserted, like a ghost city.
Naypyidaw is the new capital of Myanmar, located in a narrow canyon area in central Myanmar, surrounded by mountains on all sides, with a very remote geographical location.
Originally, this area was a desolate and dense forest, but it wasn't until the Burmese government hastily relocated the capital from Yangon to this place in 2005 that the name Naypyidaw became known to the world.
In terms of urban scale, Naypyidaw is a grand to exaggerated giant "city" with an area of approximately 7054 square kilometers, which is nine times that of the original capital Yangon and can be considered the largest city in Southeast Asia.
As a newly built city, Naypyidaw has adopted modern concepts in its planning and design, and its wide roads are astonishing. The widest national highway is actually 20 lanes wide, even suburban roads have 6 lanes.
However, despite the wide streets and sparse vehicles, the entire city appears unusually deserted, as if it were a desolate and uninhabited land.
Even in the bustling city, only a few scattered vendors and children playing on the streets can be seen.
Public facilities are also deserted, although there are some standard urban supporting facilities, there are few visitors.
Why did Myanmar relocate its capital from the bustling Yangon to the remote Naypyidaw?
Yangon is the largest city in Myanmar, with a history of over a thousand years of construction, and is one of the birthplaces of Burmese civilization.
It used to be an important commercial port city with a prosperous economy.
However, for a long time, Myanmar has been plagued by civil war and ethnic conflicts, and in 1988, a nationwide democratic movement broke out, causing enormous pressure on the military government.
Faced with internal and external pressures, the military government believes that relocating the capital to Yangon is no longer effective in controlling the situation, so it has decided to relocate the capital to Naypyidaw, which is more conducive to controlling the national situation.
The geographical location of Naypyidaw is remote, easy to defend, and close to the ethnic areas in the north, which helps to unify the situation.
At the same time, it is also a natural barrier that can resist external threats.
In 2002, the Myanmar government began planning and constructing Naypyidaw at a cost of over 4 billion US dollars.
However, despite investing a large amount of manpower and material resources, the city faced serious problems of lagging infrastructure and unstable social environment when it finally took shape, hindering urban development.
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