Yenangyaung

Yenangyaung is a town on the Irrawaddy in central Myanmar, whose name means stream of foul-smelling water. Hand-dug oil wells there were worked by hereditary families under royal licence in the Konbaung period, and from the late nineteenth century the Burmah Oil Company developed it into one of the earliest commercial oilfields in Asia. In 1942 it was the scene of a battle during the Japanese invasion.