Five Maps of the War (Myanmar)
Territorial control, resistance offensives and the junta's shrinking core, in five maps.
LiveUAMap — Myanmar Real-Time Tracker
Source: LiveUAMap
LiveUAMap’s Myanmar module provides the most accessible real-time window into the conflict, aggregating geolocated news alerts from Myanmar Now, The Irrawaddy, Frontier Myanmar, and international wire services. Each event is placed on an interactive map with a chronological news feed, allowing users to track how the conflict unfolds across regions simultaneously.
The platform’s value is especially evident during major operations. When the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched Operation 1027 in October 2023, LiveUAMap captured the rapid territorial changes in northern Shan State as they happened — the fall of military bases, the capture of border towns, and the junta’s scrambled airstrikes — before any traditional news outlet had assembled a coherent account. During the January 2026 coordinated attacks in Bago Region, where multiple PDF units struck regime bases along major highways simultaneously, LiveUAMap was the first platform to show the geographic distribution of the attacks.
LiveUAMap provides dedicated embed frames and has been widely integrated into news sites, research portals, and educational platforms worldwide.
ACLED — Myanmar Conflict Data
Source: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
ACLED provides the most comprehensive structured conflict dataset for Myanmar, with event-level coding covering battles, explosions, violence against civilians, protests, and strategic developments across all 14 states and regions. Since the February 2021 coup, ACLED has documented tens of thousands of conflict events, creating a record that enables rigorous statistical analysis of a war that conventional coverage struggles to capture.
The Myanmar dataset is particularly valuable because of the conflict’s fragmentation. With 1,200+ armed groups operating simultaneously, event-level data is the only way to understand patterns: which regions see the heaviest fighting, how the ratio of airstrikes to ground engagements has changed over time, which ethnic armed organizations are most active, and how the junta’s use of air power escalates during resistance offensives. ACLED’s coding distinguishes between actors, enabling analysis of the complex web of alliances and rivalries that defines Myanmar’s battlefield.
ACLED publishes under open-access terms and actively encourages researchers and journalists to use and redistribute their data with attribution.
CFR Global Conflict Tracker — Myanmar
Source: Council on Foreign Relations
The Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Conflict Tracker provides the most accessible entry point for understanding Myanmar’s war within its geopolitical context. The interactive summary includes territorial control data, key actor profiles, conflict trajectory analysis, and assessment of U.S. and international strategic interests. While less granular than specialist platforms, CFR’s treatment connects the military situation to ASEAN diplomacy, Chinese intervention, humanitarian law, and international sanctions.
CFR’s tracker is updated by their Asia program staff and draws on the organization’s network of field researchers and policy analysts. The platform’s assessment of U.S. interests and policy options makes it particularly relevant for understanding how Myanmar’s conflict fits into broader Indo-Pacific strategy.
As a nonprofit think tank, CFR produces its public-facing research tools specifically to inform policy debate and encourages citation and redistribution.
ISP-Myanmar — Analytical Mapping Portal
Source: Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar (ISP-Myanmar)
The Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar produces the most data-driven analysis of the conflict, and their mapping portal translates that research into geographic visualizations. ISP-Myanmar is responsible for the widely cited statistic that the junta controls only 21% of national territory. Their maps distinguish between areas of effective control, contested zones, and areas where governance has shifted to resistance administrations.
Particularly valuable is their mapping of the conflict economy: opium production zones, scam center concentrations, and rare earth mining areas are shown alongside military positions, revealing the economic geography that sustains all sides. ISP-Myanmar’s Five-Dynamics Framework — identifying weapons scarcity, economic fragmentation, China’s gatekeeper role, humanitarian collapse, and governance paralysis as the structural forces shaping the conflict — provides analytical context that territorial maps alone cannot.
ISP-Myanmar is an independent research organization that publishes its analysis publicly and encourages academic and journalistic use.
International Crisis Group — Myanmar Analysis
Source: International Crisis Group
Crisis Group’s Myanmar program produces the most policy-relevant analysis of the conflict, with detailed research reports, CrisisWatch monthly assessments, and visual briefings that map territorial changes alongside diplomatic and humanitarian developments. Their work on Operation 1027, the Arakan Army’s quasi-state in Rakhine, and the junta’s sham elections has been cited by the UN, ASEAN, and Western governments.
Crisis Group’s Richard Horsey, the organization’s senior Myanmar adviser, is considered one of the foremost international authorities on the conflict. His analysis of the “armed coexistence” dynamic — where neither side can defeat the other, producing a de facto partition maintained by continuous low-level violence — has shaped how policymakers understand the war’s trajectory.
As a nonprofit organization dedicated to conflict prevention, Crisis Group actively encourages the distribution of its public research and analysis.
Further cartographic resources
- IISS Myanmar Conflict Map (Subscription) — The International Institute for Strategic Studies maintains the most comprehensive interactive platform dedicated specifically to Myanmar’s civil war, with detailed tracking of territorial control, frontline movements, and opposition force activity. The IISS’s military expertise provides unmatched analytical depth. Requires institutional or individual subscription. link
- The Irrawaddy — Mapping Junta Gains and Losses (Restricted) — The Irrawaddy, Myanmar’s most established independent news organization, produced a landmark analysis mapping territorial changes since Operation 1027. Their reporters maintain sources on all sides of the conflict, giving the cartographic work an on-the-ground credibility that international organizations cannot match. Content redistribution restricted. link
- BBC — Myanmar Conflict Visual Explainer (Restricted) — The BBC’s visual journalism team has produced detailed explainers of the Myanmar conflict with maps showing territorial control, ethnic group distributions, and the geographic fragmentation of the country. Their accessible visual format serves a broad audience. Embedding restricted by BBC content policies. link