Buddha evidently stated that he envisioned a great city at the foot of Mandalay Hill. King Mindon made that happen. And right at the foot of Mandalay Hill, he also built his Royal Palace, starting early in the year 1857. The Mandalay Royal Palace only had two kings, King Mindon and his son, King Thibaw. It ended when the British conquered this area of Burma in 1885.

The Royal Palace originally consisted of 114 buildings, all made of Teak wood. The wall around the palace is 26 feet high and well over four miles long. The palace also has a 230 foot wide moat around it and it is one of the world’s few remaining water-filled moats. While the moat is still full of water and fish, the crocodiles are gone.

The original Royal Palace was destroyed during World War II, by bombs and fire, from Allied bombing. The palace was reconstructed in the 1990’s but now has just over 40 buildings, most of which are empty. The public only has limited access to the Royal Palace as it is controlled by the Military.

1. This is the initial palace building. It’s a very high multi-layered building with the main throne room and it was quite an impressive building. There are seven throne rooms in all in the complex.

2. The second photo is from the back side of the initial palace building in the first photo. It gives a glimpse of the size and layout of the buildings in the complex.

3. There is some significance to the third photo. This is the divide between the king’s buildings and the queen’s buildings, or women’s quarters. The king’s buildings are the gold gilt filigree buildings. The queen’s or women’s buildings are the red buildings. The last king, King Thibaw had 50 queens. That might explain why they originally had 114 buildings.

4. The fourth photo was taken from the same spot as the second photo, but just aimed over to the right. The tower in the center was a watch tower that was disguised to look like a temple. They evidently didn’t want people or enemies to know that they were watching them.

5. The last photo is just to let you see the inside of one of the buildings, in this case, the Promenade Hall.