More than two thousand Buddhist temples and stupas across forty square kilometres of dry plain, built in two centuries and abandoned for six.
A necessary note first
Myanmar has been in armed conflict since the military coup of February 2021. Several governments advise against all or all-but-essential travel to the country, insurance is generally void where you travel against that advice, and there is a live ethical argument about whether tourist spending supports the military administration.
This page describes the place. Whether to go, and when, is a decision that needs current information rather than a guidebook, and the honest answer at the time of writing is that most visitors should not.
What it is
The capital of the Pagan Kingdom from the ninth to the thirteenth century, and the point at which Theravada Buddhism became established across the region. Between roughly 1050 and 1300 its rulers and wealthy families built over ten thousand religious monuments on the plain beside the Irrawaddy. Around 2,200 survive.
They were abandoned after Mongol invasions and the kingdom’s collapse, and the plain has been a religious site and a farming landscape ever since rather than a ruin — many temples are still in active use, with monks, offerings and gilded Buddhas inside.
UNESCO listed it in 2019, decades later than it should have, after a long dispute about crude restoration work carried out in the 1990s.
The temples
Ananda — the most refined, with four standing Buddhas facing the cardinal directions and a white-and-gold exterior.
Dhammayangyi — the largest and strangest, built by a king who murdered his father, with a bricked-up inner passage nobody has satisfactorily explained.
Shwesandaw, Thatbyinnyu, Sulamani, Htilominlo — the well-known ones, all in the central plain.
The small unnamed ones are the reason to spend three days rather than one. There are hundreds, most of them empty, many with faded murals, and you can find them by cycling until something looks interesting.
Sunrise, and the balloons
The image of Bagan is hot air balloons over mist and stupas at dawn. Balloon operators fly in the dry season and it is expensive.
Climbing the temples for sunrise was banned in 2016 after damage and a fatal fall, and enforcement tightened after the 2016 earthquake. Designated viewing mounds and a few terraces are the legal alternatives — do not climb a stupa because somebody’s photograph from 2014 shows them doing it.
The 2016 earthquake
A magnitude 6.8 quake damaged around 400 monuments, several severely. Restoration has continued unevenly since. Some famous temples have been closed or partly scaffolded for years.
Practical
An archaeological zone fee is charged on entry and is valid for several days.
E-bikes are the standard way to get around the plain, hired by the day, and are far better than a car for finding the small temples.
Dress code at every temple: shoulders and knees covered, and shoes and socks off before entering the platform, not just the building. This is enforced and it is not negotiable.
