Mrauk U, archaeological site and capital of the former Arakan kingdom, Rakhine State, central W Myanmar. The kingdom flourished in the 15th to 18th cent., and Mrauk U was an important trading city, with ties to India, Persia, Arabia, Portugal, and the Netherlands. Its ruins contain hundreds of brick and stone temples and pagodas. Shittaung pagoda, built by King Min Bin (1535) and considered the main temple at the site, is said to contain 80,000 statues of the Buddha. Kothaung temple, built by King Mintaikkha (1553), Min Bin's son, is even larger, with a purported 90,000 Buddhist images.
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