Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

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REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA.
with the classes enumerated in paragraph 13 of Mr. Eales' 1891 Report. In detail
they are as follows :
I.—Upper Burma (wet) ... Upper Chindwin, Katha, Bhamo, Myitkyina,
Ruby Mines, Northern Shan States,
Southern Shan States, Chin Hills.
II.—Upper Burma (dry) ... Yamethin, Meiktila, Kyaukse, Myingyan,
Sagaing, Shwebo, Lower Chindwin,
Pakokku, Magwe, Minbu, Mandalay.
III.—Lower Burma (littoral and Akyab (with Northern Arakan), Kyaukpyu,
deltaic).
:
Sandoway, Bassein, Myaungmya, Th6ngwa,
Hanthawaddy, Rangoon Town, Pegu,
That6n (with Sal ween), Amherst, Tavoy,
IV.— Lower Burma (sub-deltaic)
Mergui.
Thayetmyo, Tharrawaddy, H e n z a d a,
Prome, Toungoo.
In the maps appended to this chapter are shown the densities of the different
districts of Upper and Lower Burma as well 'as those of nearly every township in
the province. The district density is in each case indicated by green shading,
the township by red figures. We are not here intimately concerned with the
latter, but may with advantage pause to consider how the districts of the four
"natural" divisions figure on the map.
21. A glance at Division I, as shown on the map, would, as I have remarked
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above, at first sight incline one to the belief that in
District densities. n 1 -
i r n . i , - r
Burma a high raintall meant a scanty population, lor
the whole of the wet area, without exception, has the light shading, which indicates
a low density. With the exception of. Katha none of the districts can boast of as
many as twenty-four inhabitants per square mile, and Katha is only just in excess
of the above figure. We know, however, that rainfall has had nothing to do
with the scantiness of the population of the tracts in question. They are all hilly
and on the whole rugged, and it is their mountainous character alone that is responsible
for their dearth of residents. The averages for the Shan States give no
conception, of course, of the fertile and populous stretches that extend here and
there like oases amid the uninhabited uplands. The state of Pang Ni, for instance,
has a density of 119, that of Nawng Wawn 1 1
7 inhabitants per square mile. It-has
not however been found convenient to indicate the density for anything smaller than
the two main political charges on the map, except in the same way that the township
figures have been indicated in Burma proper, namely, in red ; for the purposes of a
.general average the favoured States have had perforce to be lumped with the unblessed.
In Division II as in Division I, one is confronted with figures that appear
at first sight anomalous. Here, if anywhere in Burma, are to be found the famine
districts of the province ;
here alone are the prospects of an ample harvest ever
a matter of doubt
;
yet here we find a density ranging from a minimum of 5
maximum 1 to a
of 152 inhabitants per square mile. The districts lie, along the valleys of
the Chindwin and the Irrawaddy or are watered by the streams from the neighbouring
highlands and, for all their meagre rainfall, succeed in supporting a by no means insignificant
population. When we turn to Lower Burma we find far more variety
within the divisions ;
here again the rain-gauge is no guide. Kyaukpyu, Sandoway,
Tavoy and Mergui in Division III are all extraordinarily wet, and at the same
time, in consequence of their hills, very thinly populated and the. same may Be
-said of Northern Arakan and Salween, which, though not, strictly speaking, coast
districts, are included in Division III, as partaking rather of the nature of the districts
to which they form, so to speak, a Hinterland than of that of any other portion
of the province. Akyab, Thaton and Amherst enjoy a heavy rainfall, but,
-having more cultivable plain land, show a higher density than the districts previously
named. In the delta the rains, though heavy, are not so heavy as on the Arakan
and Tenasserim coasts, but nearly the whole of the vast level is capable of being
brought under the plough and it is here that the population is on the whole thickest.
In this category come Bassein, Thongwa, Myaungmya, Hanthawaddy and
Pegu, with densities varying from 160 to 79 persons per square mile. Pegu ~ is
Composite in nature: its northern/portion falls more properly into Division IV,\which
is discussed below, and hardly any portion of it, as at present constituted, touches