Medieval (500–1500)

Bagan (Pagan Kingdom)

c. 9th–13th c. · Myanmar · Southeast Asia · Sacred, imperial, and cosmological order · Planned by Pagan dynasty
2020 satellite picture of the Bagan plain showing the spread of temples across the old capital's territory.
2020 satellite picture of the Bagan plain showing the spread of temples across the old capital's territory. · Public domain

Core idea

Sacred landscape of 2,000+ Buddhist temples and monasteries across a walled riverine plain

Why it matters

Buddhist sacred urbanism at monumental scale; counterpart to Angkor in Theravada tradition

Description

Bagan, capital of the Pagan kingdom in present-day Myanmar, developed between the ninth and thirteenth centuries on a bend of the Irrawaddy river. Successive kings and donors covered the walled city and its surrounding plain with several thousand Buddhist temples, stupas and monasteries, of which over two thousand survive, creating a sacred landscape in which religious monuments rather than streets or walls give the settlement its structure.

Significance

Bagan represents Buddhist sacred urbanism at monumental scale and is the great Theravada counterpart to Angkor, showing merit-making donation as a force capable of generating an entire urban landscape. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, it figures prominently in discussions of dispersed, ceremonial forms of urbanism that challenge compact, wall-bound definitions of the city.

What shaped it

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.