35 Street Portrait Photos of Yangon Girls in the Early 1970s

Yangon, also known as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). It served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government relocated the administrative functions to the purpose-built capital city of Naypyidaw in north central Myanmar, and Myanmar’s most populous city and its most important commercial centre.

Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in Southeast Asia, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centered around the Sule Pagoda, which is reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda – Myanmar's most sacred and famous Buddhist pagoda.

Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure, especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia. Though many historic residential and commercial buildings have been renovated throughout central Yangon, most satellite towns that ring the city continue to be profoundly impoverished and lack basic infrastructure.

These fascinating photos were taken by American photographer Nick DeWolf that show street portraits of Yangon girls in 1972.

(Photo © Nick DeWolf)