The ghost capital — eight-lane empty highways, palace-sized pagodas and a city with no people
Naypyidaw is Myanmar's purpose-built capital, announced without warning in 2005 when the military junta simply ordered the government to move from Yangon. The result is one of the world's strangest cities — a vast metropolis of 20-lane highways, replica Shwedagon Pagoda, a zoo with a white elephant, government ministry compounds, and luxury hotels, where the boulevards are entirely empty of traffic and pedestrians can walk across 10 lanes of road without looking. The city was built at enormous cost on the jungle-covered Naypyidaw Union Territory, far from the coast and far from the population…
The decision to move Myanmar's capital from Yangon to this remote central location was announced on 6 November 2005 with no public explanation — civil servants were given days to relocate their families. The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) general Khin Nyunt later claimed the move was advised by astrologers. Naypyidaw (meaning 'Abode of Kings' or 'Royal Capital') was built at an estimated cost of $4–8 billion while the country remained under severe international sanctions. The 2021 military coup, which ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government and sparked the ongoing civi…