Steve Nickolson, age 15, of Tacoma, Wash., for his question:
WHO MAKES UP BURMA'S POPULATION?
Burma is a republic in Southeast Asia that is bounded on the north by Tibet, on the east by China, Laos and Thailand, on the south by the Amadaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal and on the west by the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh and India.
The native population of Burma is essentially Mongoloid. More than two thirds of the people are Burmese, racially akin to the Tibetans and the Chinese.
Several indigenous or native minorities with their own languages and cultures also inhabit the country. Most important of these groups are the Karen, Shan, Mon, Chin and Kachin.
The Karen have their own state in Lower Burma. The Shan, a people related to the Thai, live mainly in the hills along the Thai border. The Mon, or Mon Khmer, the first major ethnic group known to have migrated to Burma, live mainly in the delta region and are becoming assimilated with the Burmese ethnic majority.
The Chin, who are related to ethnic groups of neighboring Assam State of India, live in the northwestern mountainous region. They live primarily by hunting and fishing. The Kachin, a hill people, are concentrated in the far north of Burma, along the Chinese border. They are related ethnically to the Chinese and are ruled by hereditary leaders.
The Burmese population also includes large immigrant minorities, notably about 700,000 Indians and 350,000 Chinese.
The 1980 population of Burma was 35.3 million. The overall population density was 135 per square mile, one of the lowest in the Far East. The population is overwhelmingly rural. Most of the urban areas are actually agricultural villages.
The Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma, as the nation is officially called, is made up of Burma proper and the seven states of Arakan, Chin, Kachin, Karen, Kayah, Mon and Shan. The capital, largest city and chief seaport is Rangoon.
About 80 percent of all Burmese are Buddhists, most of whom adhere to the Theravada school of Buddhism. Small groups of Hindus, Muslims and Christians also live there.
Most of the linguistic groups in Burma are monosyllabic and polytonal, similar to those of Tibet and China. Burmese, the principal language, is spoken by about 60 percent of the people.
The Burmese alphabet is based on Sanskrit and a form of the alphabet of Pali, which is the sacred tongue of Buddhism.
About 15 percent of the population speaks the Shan and Karen languages, and the remainder speaks Mon. English is spoken among the educated and the country contains a sizable number of Chinese speakers.
Education is free and is compulsory in primary schools. English is the second language in many of the secondary schools.