Geographically, without regard to administrative distribution, the Province may be regarded as consisting of five main divisions:
- (1) Central Burma, extending from the sea to Tibet;
- (2) Tenasserim, exclusive of the western part of Toungoo but including Karenni;
- (3) Arakan, omitting the northern Hill District;
- (4) The Chin Hills, with Northern Arakan;
- (5) The Shan country.
Central Burma. (1) Central Burma lies between the Arakan Yoma,[1] the Chin Hills, Manipur and Assam on the west, and the Sittang river, the Shan States, and China on the east. It is traversed throughout by the Irrawaddy river, partially in the north by the Chindwin. It may be sub-divided into the wet zone, the dry zone, and hill country. It must not be supposed that these divisions are marked distinctly like the squares on a chess board, but roughly the distribution is sufficiently accurate.
In the south lies the Delta of the Irrawaddy and the wide-stretching deltaic districts of Hanthawaddy, Insein, Pegu and Tharrawaddy. This vast expanse of country is a great alluvial plain. The true Delta includes all the districts of the Irrawaddy division, Bassein, Pyapôn, Ma-u-bin, Myaungmya, Henzada, a flat country intersected by countless rivers and creeks.[2] On the sea board and along the banks of streams and creeks are masses of mangrove and dani palm forest, tidal and swamp vegetation, elephant grass and savannah. In parts, as on the shore of Bassein, the coast consists of a gently shelving sandy beach but westward towards Cape Negrais, the one well-defined promontory, it is rocky and difficult to approach. Except in the north-west of Bassein and towards the head of the
