Burma

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Burma is a country in Southeast Asia on the Bay of Bengal bordered by Thailand, China and India.

Its postal history goes back to when the Indian post office established post offices in 1854. Indian stamps were used, with Burmese use of stamps recognizable by cancels beginning in 1856. This was originally an octagonal type killer/obliterator enclosing a "B" and an office number ("5" for Akyab, "156" for Rangoon, for example) within the larger number of offices in the (Indian) Bengal Postal Circle. In 1860, the cancel was changed to a duplex type with a diamond-shaped killer. Then in 1875, the numbering scheme and cancel style was changed, with killers now a block of bars with "R" followed by a dash and number. Beginning in 1886, Burma became a province of India and CDSs were used. See the Stanley Gibbons catalogue of Commonwealth and British Empire Stamps.  File:Burma Rangoon sq cir.jpg|1889 Rangoon squared circle cancel. Rangoon is not a rare cancel File:Burma Rangoon cancel 1899.jpg|1899 Rangoon cancel 

Burma became a separate colony in 1937. With the beginning of World War II, Japan occupied Burma along with Burmese independence groups. See: Burma – Japanese occupation issues.
 * In 1937, then-current Indian stamps with George V were overprinted BURMA. High values exist with telegraph and revenue/fiscal cancels. Also as expected, the highest values exist with forged overprints and cancels.
 * In 1938-40, designs with George VI were issued. Again, high values exist with telegraph and revenue/fiscal cancels.
 * In 1940, an overprint for the Penny Black centenary was released.
 * In 1945 at war's end, stamps were overprinted MILY ADMIN.
 * Burma became a republic in 1948 with stamp inscribed bilingually, the English part reading UNION OF BURMA.
 * In March 1974, inscriptions became SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF THE UNION OF BURMA.
 * In 1989, the Union of Burma became the Union of Myanmar.

 File:Burma 12a KGV.jpg|1937 12 anna value File:Burma 1r KGV.jpg|1937 1 rupee value 

 File:Burma KGVI ovptd.jpg File:Burma 5r temple.jpg File:Burma 1k bird.jpg File:Burma 15p 1983 telephone.jpg|1983 15p Communications Year 

Officials
 File:Burma coron offic.jpg File:Burma 4a service ovptd.jpg File:Burma 2r official ovptd.jpg 

[[Category:B]]