Introduction by the Guest Editor to "Burmese Heritage", a collection of articles published in the IIAS Newsletter Issue 25, October 2001. "The Union of Myanmar, more commonly known as Burma, has a very rich and culturally diverse heritage. The Burmese are the majority of the population while Kachin, Chin, Arakanese, Shan, and Karen form important minority groups cultivating their own traditions. Since the late eighteenth century, the area covered today by the Union of Myanmar was known to Westerners as Burma. The renaming of the country by the military government a few years ago is still a controversial issue for political opponents, though 'Myanmar' was the usual literary name for the country since the earliest days of Burmese epigraphy..."