Architectural Guide Yangon presents around one hundred memorable buildings from Myanmar's historical capital. Following decades of international isolation, the city's vast heritage remains largely, surprisingly and spectacularly intact. Rangoon - as it was known under the British - was a melting pot of British India. Vivid traces of this legacy are everywhere, especially in the city's Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim houses of worship that often stand side by side, down town, in Yangon s tightly-gridded streets. Since the country s independence from the British in 1948, successive authoritarian regimes have also stamped the cityscape with their legacies.