Bagan's Temple Plain beside the Ayeyarwady

Bagan's Temple Plain beside the Ayeyarwady is an original illustration set in Bagan, Myanmar. It lies in the tropics, where the climate is hot semi-arid steppe.

Brick-red temples and bell-shaped stupas rise at many scales above Bagan's pale central plain. A large terraced sanctuary anchors the foreground, tamarind and toddy palms separate fields and village paths, the Ayeyarwady forms a broad blue bend in the distance, and a few small balloons float high without obscuring the monuments.

Why are thousands of brick temples scattered across this dry river plain?

Bagan's rulers and communities built temples as acts of Buddhist merit when the city controlled a wealthy river-based kingdom. The broad dry-zone plain offered room for thousands of monuments, while the Ayeyarwady carried people, materials and agricultural wealth through a region with strongly seasonal rain. Because sacred buildings accumulated over centuries rather than within one enclosure, stupas, farms and living settlements interlock across the entire landscape instead of forming a single compact complex.

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