Mandalay Royal Palace

The Mandalay Hill is situated to the north-east corner of the Mandalay Royal Palace. It lies from north to south, its altitude being 236.5m above sea level and its height going up to 167.64m.

King Mindon, who founded the Royal City of Yatanabon, built the Mya Nan San Kyaw, the Royal Palace, on 6th waning day of Kason, M.E 1221 ( A.D 1857 ). It is surrounded by the rectangular shaped walls, each of which stretches 8.25 kilometres long, and again by the moat which is 68.58m wide and 3.35m deep. Formerly, there existed 114 royal apartments, which, being built on 3.35m high platform, covered 152.4m wide.

On 17 March, 1945, during the air raid of the British forces against the Japanese, the Royal Palace was ruined into ashes.

With the objective of re-establishing the milestone in Myanmar tradition and ancient times, when Myanmar had their own monarchs, their own royal palace and their own soverignity, the Royal Palace has been renovated and restored faithfully into its original structure. The 89 main halls were re-built with reference to the original photographs, pictures, palm-leaf manuscripts with reference to the original photographs, pictures, palm leaf manuscripts about the royal apartments and the miniature model of the royal palace. On 18-9-96, the complete construction of the Mya Nan San Kyaw the Golden Palace was successfully celebrated.

Mandalay City Development Committee has been undertaking the task of removing the pond scum of the moat as the cleaning work of the royal moat, which bears a grace and a pride to the city : 4 large-scale pond scum-removing machines, 3 small pond scum-removing machines and 62 appointed workers remove about seven tons of pound scum per day. Activities such as mowing and making the crash barriers even, replacing the dead plants with new ones, and giving care to the growth of the plants have been routine tasks.

(Source: myanmars.net)