Kyaik Lagon (Shwe Dagon)pagoda Mon inscription 

The Shwe Dagon Pagoda had been a place of pilgrimage for many centuries, and Yangôn grew out of a settlement around the temple that eventually became known as Dagon. Its status was raised to that of a town by the Mon kings in the early 15th century. When King Alaungpaya (who founded the last dynasty of Myanmar kings) conquered southern Myanmar in the mid-1750s, he developed Dagon as a port and renamed it Yangôn (“The End of Strife”), a name that was later transliterated as Rangoon by Arakanese interpreters accompanying the British. By the early 19th century the town had a thriving shipbuilding industry, as well as a British trading station. Rangoon was taken by the British at the outbreak of the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1824 but was restored to Burmese control two years later. The city was taken again in 1852 by the British, who made it the administrative capital of Lower Burma (i.e., the southern part of the country). After the British annexation of all of Burma in 1886, Rangoon became the capital city and grew in importance.

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