Myanmar has had twenty-two capitals since the year 849, and its seat of government has changed thirty-nine times. Wolfgang Bellwinkel’s Vast Land is a photographic study of the country’s last three capitals: Mandalay (1857–1885), Yangon (1885–2005) and Naypyitaw (since 2005). All three were planned on the drawing board, and all are shaped by the political aspirations and self-image of those who built them.

Bellwinkel is the photographer. His images are sober and precise, revealing the character and historical layers of the three cities rather than pursuing spectacle. Sociologist Heinz Schütte contributes a twenty-page essay on the history and present of the cities, and Franz Xaver Augustin provides an introduction. Design is credited to Sebastian Bissinger, BANK TM, Berlin.

Vast Land is published by Hartmann Books in a German and English edition, 144 pages with 56 illustrations, in softcover with lay-flat binding, measuring 24 by 31.5 centimeters. The photographs, essay, and introduction together address a country marked by colonial oppression, world war, civil war, natural disasters, military dictatorship, ethnic conflicts, and displacement.