BHAMO, a town and district of Burma. The town was in ancient times the capital of the Shan state of Manmaw, later the seat of a Burmese governor. It is now the headquarters of a district in the North-East Frontier division of Burma on the Chinese frontier. It is situated about 3oom. up the river Irrawaddy from Mandalay and so nearly a thousand miles by river from the sea. It is normally the highest point reached by the regular services of launches of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Com pany. It is also the nearest point on the river to the Chinese frontier. In 1931 it contained 7,827 inhabitants, of whom a con siderable number were Chinese, natives of India and Chinese Shans. It stretches for a distance of nearly 4m. along the Irrawaddy bank in a series of small villages, transformed into quarters of the town, but the town proper is confined mainly to the one high ridge of land running at right angles to the river. The surface of the ground is much cut up by ravines which fill and dry up according to the rise and fall of the river. When the Irrawaddy is at its height the lower portion of the town is flooded, and the country all round is a sheet of water, but usually for no very long time. Here or hereabouts has long been the terminus of a great deal of the land commerce from China.
The district of Bhamo lies wholly in the basin of the Irrawaddy, which, as well as its tributaries, runs through the heart of it. On the east of the river is the Shan plateau, running almost due north and south. West of the Irrawaddy there is a regular series of ranges, enclosing the basins of the Kaukkwe, Mosit, Indaw and other streams down which much timber is floated. (L. D. S.)