Transport and infrastructure in Myanmar
Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of Myanmar with the average of all countries in Asia. The traffic routes have noticeable defects in many places and are often not in particularly good condition.In terms of the length of its rail network, Myanmar ranks 80th in the world with 0.09 meters per inhabitant. In total, the rail network is 5,031 kilometers long.
The waterways listed refer to inland traffic on rivers and canals. The number of ports includes those located on the 1,930 km of coastline. In 2021, about 1.09 million freight containers were transported.
› Airports in Myanmar
Back to overview: Myanmar
Road traffic
The network of roads and highways has a total length of 157,000 km. For each of the country's 53.80 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 2.92 meters. This puts Myanmar in 146th place in the global ranking. However, the country's size and population density of around 80 inhabitants per km² must also be taken into account. Countries with fewer inhabitants in the same or even larger area naturally achieve quite different values here and have to connect remote areas to the transport network despite a smaller population.With an average of 10452 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in Myanmar is considered rather mixed. This corresponds to 19.9 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.
In Myanmar, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road, i.e. people drive in the right-hand lane and overtake on the left. Oncoming traffic comes toward you on the left side. This regulation was enforced in January 1st, 1970. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.
Myanmar | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 157,000 km | 2,918.32 km | 232.05 m |
| Railroads | 5,000 km | 93.52 km | 7.44 m |
| Waterways | 12,800 km | 237.93 km | 18.92 m |
| Commercial harbors | 95 | 1.77 | 0.000 |
| Airports | 24 | 0.45 | 0.035 |
Asia | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 16,613,000 km | 3,524.24 km | 519.50 m |
| Railroads | 280,000 km | 59.41 km | 8.76 m |
| Waterways | 260,300 km | 55.21 km | 8.14 m |
| Commercial harbors | 45,998 | 9.76 | 0.001 |
| Airports | 1,012 | 0.21 | 0.000 |
Data sources used
• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)
Largest airports and airlines in Myanmar
Climate details in Myanmar
Mega cities - the biggest cities all over the world