Myanmar capital
Restaurants include Cafe Flight, which occupies a salvaged aeroplane. There are also several golf courses, a few parks and a zoo, as well as beautifully manicured roundabouts topped with sculptures of flowers. For those fed up with the sorts of crowds you can expect at temples in neighbouring Thailand - or even Myanmar's tourist honeypot of Bagan - it's perfect. Landmarks include the 99-metre Uppatasanti Pagoda, which houses a Buddha tooth relic from China. Top Gear's 2014 Burma Special poked fun at the barren motorways, with the presenters playing football on them and joking about the non-existent rush hour. Rumour has it that the scale was devised so aircraft could use them as emergency runways in the event of protests or revolution. Spare a thought for those street sweepers – some of the highways are huge, with as many as 20 lanes (but no traffic). The battle against the dust amounts to an unceasing demonstration that remoteness provides no insulation against reality." The only signs of life along mile after mile of empty highways are the straw-hatted street sweepers. Indeed, McElroy described it as "an empty city, with barely a car on the road, and not a crowd to be seen", adding: "All Naypyidaw's roads lead eventually to Myanmar's most powerful seat, but there is only desolation along the way. For Manila, among the most densely populated cities on the planet, it's 108,000. The corresponding figure for London, for example, is 14,500.
Its population, questionable official figures claim, is 924,608, which - even if true - adds up to a population density of just 339.5 per square mile.
Then you see the distance between the building, set far apart to survive air raids." Back in 2011, when The Telegraph was granted a visit, one Western diplomat told our reporter, Damien McElroy: "The only real way to get a sense of this place is from Google Earth. It has even been said the vastness of Naypyidaw can only be comprehended from space. So just how big is it? Estimates have put the figure at 2,723 square miles (4,382 kilometres), which - if accurate - make it four times bigger than London, and six times the size of New York City. The city remained nameless for a year, but after a massive military parade on the first anniversary of the move, held in the shadow of three enormous statues of Kings Anawrahta, Bayinnaung and Alaungpaya, considered the three greatest monarchs in the nation's history, the "Naypyidaw" moniker was unveiled. The exact timing of the declaration was reportedly chosen by the personal astrologers of then-dictator Senior General Than Shwe.īy submitting your email you are agreeing to Fairfax Media's Myanmar's capital, Burmese for "abode of the king", emerged from virgin forest just 200 miles north of the old one, Yangon (formerly Rangoon) in 2005, and quickly staked its claim for the title of "world's weirdest city", notable for its colossal scale and relative lack of residents.Ĭonstruction, involving at least 25 separate firms, actually started in 2002, but the world knew nothing of it until Myanmar's military rulers announced the overnight transfer of government offices on November 6, 2005. It isn't quite Melbourne or Sydney, but it's not without its charms. Canberra, meanwhile, laid out in 1913, mixes bush with brutalism, avenues with museums – and hosts a thriving hipster coffee and bar scene. More than three million live there today and among major Latin American cities it has the highest GDP per capita. Brasilia, built between 19, with Oscar Niemeyer providing the flourishes, was a resounding success. There are several fine examples to offer inspiration. An existing city, such as Palangka Raya, may be chosen, otherwise Indonesia's government could follow the lead of many before it by building a brand new home from scratch. Such a move has been mooted for some time and Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo, is the favoured location for a new centrepiece.