Burma

American  

[bur-muh] / ˈbɜr mə /

noun

1. a country in Southeast Asia, renamed Myanmar in 1989.

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Burma British  

/ ˈbɜːmə /

noun

1. the former official name (until 1989, though still widely used) of Myanmar

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Burma Cultural  

1. Republic in Southeast Asia, now officially known as Myanmar, bordered by Bangladesh, India, and the Bay of Bengal to the west; China to the north and northeast; Laos and Thailand to the east; and the Andaman Sea to the south. Rangoon is its capital and largest city.

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Usage

See Myanmar.

Discover More

Run by its military in the 1970s and 1980s, Burma saw its economy decline. Free elections in 1990 were won by the main opposition party, but the military government refused to relinquish its powers.

During World War II, the Allies and Japanese troops fought intense campaigns over control of the Burma Road, a vital supply link between China and India.

Under British control until 1948, it then became an independent republic.

Example Sentences

Burma has been in a brutal civil war, and for over seven decades, generations of refugees have been forced out, each fleeing their own harrowing chapter of persecution.

From Slate • Mar. 19, 2026

Few Indians—other than the many who migrated there as merchants and agricultural laborers under the Raj—felt any but the loosest kinship with Burma.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 30, 2026

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, won its independence in 1948 as Britain dissolved its empire after World War II.

From Barron's • Dec. 23, 2025

“His own biography — born in India, sent to Burma as a young soldier, doing what he did there and being ashamed of it — drew him closer to my own experience,” Peck says.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 7, 2025

Whoever Burma Jones was, he deserved a generous award ... or reward.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole