Rangoon
- British colonial
Rangoon is a port on a river in Burma, now called Yangon. A hundred years ago ships and thousands of workers sailed there from the Odisha coast.
Rangoon, now called Yangon, is a busy river port in Burma. It sits about 21 miles from the sea, across open water from the Kalinga coast. [The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09), 1908, p.213]
A hundred years ago, ships sailed there often from the ports of Ganjam, in south Odisha. Many passengers travelled to Rangoon and back again each year. [The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09), 1908, p.152]
No source read here names an old Burmese port tied to Kalinga in ancient times. So this entry tells only Rangoon’s colonial-era story. [The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09), 1908, p.152]
For scholars
Both facts about British-era Rangoon come from the same Imperial Gazetteer. So they count as one source of proof. That keeps this entry at Probable. [The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09), 1908, p.213]
Facts
- Coordinates
- 16.77°, 96.18°
Sources: [The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09), 1908]
- *The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09)*. 1908. public domain
- Modern name
- Yangon, Myanmar
- Also known as
- Yangon
- Region
- southeast-asia
Routes through Rangoon
-
Gopalpur to Rangoon
From the open beach at Gopalpur, steamers crossed the Bay of Bengal to Burma. Thousands of people sailed out each year to work, and most came home again.
Scholar notes
The evidence here is colonial only. Both refs for the Rangoon link come from the same work, the Imperial Gazetteer, so the entry counts as one supporting source for that claim, which caps it at Probable. Kalinga's much older Burma trade is attested differently - by 'Maratuan' brown glazed ware at Manikapatna, named after a place in Burma (OHRJ p. 111; Patra 2014 p. 120) - but no source read here fixed that place, so Martaban is not entered.
- *The Imperial Gazetteer of India, new edition (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1907-09)*. 1908. public domain , vol. XXI, pp. 213-214, 'Rangoon City'; vol. XII, pp. 152, 329 (vol. XXI p. 213: 'Capital of Burma ... situated in 16 deg 46' N. and 96 deg 11' E. ... 21 miles from the sea.' vol. XII p. 152: exports of the Ganjam ports go chiefly to Calcutta, Madras, Bombay ... Rangoon and Moulmein, with much passenger traffic to and from Rangoon at the three ports.)
- *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain , O'Malley, Bengal District Gazetteers: Balasore (1907), p. 144 (Chandbali and Balasore traded with 'the coast ports from Bombay on the west to Arakan on the east', placing the Burmese coast inside the same shipping circuit; Arakan, not Rangoon, is the port named.)