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Amarapura, the Immortal City, is a former royal capital of Myanmar that is now a township on the southern edge of Mandalay, bounded by the Irrawaddy River to the west. It is famous for U Bein Bridge, a 1.2-kilometre teak footbridge across Taungthaman Lake, and for its silk and cotton weaving and bronze casting.
King Bodawpaya founded the city in May 1783, and it was the capital twice during the Konbaung period before Mandalay, 11 kilometres to the north, replaced it in 1859. The palace buildings were then dismantled and carried to Mandalay by elephant, and the city walls were used for roads and railways. In 1800 monks from Sri Lanka received higher ordination here and founded the Amarapura Nikaya.
Today it is a popular day trip from Mandalay, with Kyauktawgyi Pagoda at the far end of the bridge and the Mahagandhayon Monastery in town. South of Amarapura lies Inwa, the older royal capital, reached by a short boat ride across the Myitnge River.
Built between 1849 and 1851 from teak salvaged from the old palace at Inwa, this 1.2-kilometre footbridge crosses Taungthaman Lake on more than a thousand posts. Named after the official who had it built, it has four pavilions and nine passageways that open for boats.
This lake beside Amarapura is the water that U Bein Bridge crosses, and Kyauktawgyi Pagoda stands near its shore. The water is highest in July and August, when the bridge is at its busiest, and the long line of teak posts reaching across it is the classic view of the town.
King Pagan Min built this pagoda in 1847 at the far end of U Bein Bridge, modelled on the Ananda Temple at Bagan. Frescoes in its four porches show buildings the king built or repaired, the planets and stars as Burmese astronomy saw them, and people in the dress of the Konbaung period.
Built in 1773 in the reign of King Singu with support from Chinese officials at the Burmese court, this temple is one of the oldest Chinese Buddhist temples in Myanmar. Inside is the ceremonial table used by King Bodawpaya and his chief queen on their visit in 1816.
Taung Mingyi Pagoda near Taungthaman Lake is one of the Four Great Pagodas of Amarapura, first built in 1786 by the minister Thaung Mingyi. Its seated Buddha, 14.3 metres tall, sat for years in the open as the Great Sun-Exposed Buddha until a merchant paid for a new hall.
This large monastic college was founded around 1908 as a meditation monastery for forest-dwelling monks and grew under Ashin Janakabhivamsa, who lived here from 1914. It is known across Myanmar for strict observance of the Vinaya, the Buddhist code of monastic discipline.
Acheik weaving began in Amarapura near the Pahtodawgyi pagoda, and the town remains a major centre for this wave-patterned silk. The design is known as luntaya, or hundred shuttles, because each cloth uses 50 to 200 shuttles of coloured silk handled by at least two weavers.
Founded in 1365 on an island made between the Irrawaddy and Myitnge rivers, Inwa was a royal capital for nearly 360 years and gave Burma its old Western name, Ava. Earthquakes ended it in 1839, and the 2025 earthquake damaged about three quarters of its old buildings.
This teak monastery southwest of the Inwa palace site stands on 267 teak posts and is decorated with carvings of birds, animals and floral patterns in the Inwa style. Burnt in a great fire in 1821, it was rebuilt in 1992 on the model of the old monastery, first raised in 1593.
West of the old Inwa palace ruins, this complex has six stupas, a brick monastery and three Gandhakuti halls, ten structures in all, showing early Konbaung brickwork and Buddha images among toddy palms. It is a popular stop in Inwa and was damaged in the 2025 earthquake.
Nanmyin Watchtower is a 27-metre masonry lookout and one of the last remnants of the royal palace of Inwa, together with stretches of the inner and outer brick city walls. It stands near the old palace site, which the court left after the earthquakes of 1839, moving back to Amarapura in 1842.
Inwa lies about 21 kilometres south of Mandalay, and visitors cross the Myitnge River in a ride of about three minutes. On the Inwa side, horse-drawn carts wait for visitors and carry them along shady lanes between the monasteries, stupas and walls of the old city.
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