ARAKAN, , or . The northern
division of Lower Burma, British India, extending along the Bay of Bengal from about 18° to 21° 33' northern latitude, and covering, with the adjacent islands, an area of 18,540 square miles. The surface is very mountainous in the interior, which is traversed by several parallel chains. There are vast forests and marshes covered with a thick growth of grasses and underbrush. The climate is exceedingly unhealthful. The lower parts of the country are well adapted to the cultivation of rice, indigo, pepper, and raw sugar, and many tropical fruits are found in a wild state. The chief articles of export are rice, salt, and teak-wood. The chief port is Akyab. The town of Arokan, situated
in the interior to the northwest of Akyab, which
before the British conquest is said to have
numbered nearly 100,000 souls, is now a place of
ruins. The natives of Arakan are shorter and
somewhat less round-headed than the Burmese
proper, with whom they belong by race and
language. A caste system with monogamy
prevails among them. The population increased
from 671,899 in 1891 to 760,848 in 1901. About
seventy per cent. of the inhabitants are
Buddhists, while the remainder is made up chiefly
of Mohammedans. Arakan was formerly an
independent kingdom. At the end of the Seventeenth
Century it began to decline, owing to
internal strifes, and a century later fell into the
possession of Burma, from which it passed to
Great Britain in 1826. Anthropological details
concerning the peoples of Arakan will be found
in Lewin, Wild Races of Southeastern India
(London, 1870), and Risley, Tribes and Castes of
Bengal (Calcutta, 1891).