Kyaukmyaung is home to the only four large scale glaze factories in upper Myanmar.

[6] When the Japanese invaded Burma in 1942, the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company was ordered to scuttle their rivercraft at both Mandalay and Kyaukmyaung by the retreating British colonial government.

[7] The river, about half a mile wide at this point, was crossed and bridgeheads established in January 1944 by the 19th Infantry Division (India) at both Kyaukmyaung and Thabeikkyin, when the Allied forces counter-attacked.

Kyaukmyaung pots are thrown with 40 pounds of clay, and can hold 150 Vis (200 liters) of liquid.

Kyaukmyaung is home to four large scale pottery "villages" or complexes - Nwenyein, Shwegon, Shwedaik, and Malar.

Nwynyien employs people to do everything from harvesting the clay from the riverbed to bringing in firewood for the firing process.

This varies from the traditionally western style of throwing, where the entirety of the clay being used for the section is placed on the wheel and centered afterward.

To prevent distortion in the drying process, throwers will often tie twine made from straw around the pot so it retains its circular shape.

They do so through the scratch and slip method, in which they rough up the edges of the two separate pieces of the pot that they would like to stick together.

Then the ceramicists apply a finer more watered down version of the clay to the scratched area and fuse them together on the wheel where the bottom part of the pot has been drying.

After this is complete, they use the wheel and clean up the extra slip and visible evidence of the fusion, and confirm that the pot is fully centered.

They are generally thrown off the hump or a large block of clay that is centered and then used to throw three or four ceramic objects.

The first of these is a yellow glaze that is formed by adding chalk to the natural clay body.

In the 1990s Nwenyein started using various paints under the glass powder glaze for some of the decorative pottery.

This factor, along with the high cost of production, has caused most of the small scale factories to go out of business.

Leaving behind the four factories that make up Kyaungmyauk pottery village, each of these factories follow a similar structure of being led by a single entrepreneur who oversees all of the production and coordination with wholesale vendors and stores in Yangon and father down the river.

[10] As part of this, UNICEF contracted Kyaukmyaung to make the traditional pots to serve as temporary solutions to a lack of fresh water.

This triggered a revival of the economy, as an increased demand allowed Kyaumyaung to sell the pots for more profit.

This has brought the town much tourism from Europe and America, and led to a creation of a shop where tourists can buy the ceramics.

In December 2005 the Department of Fisheries designated the 72 km stretch of the Irrawaddy between these two points a protected area for the dolphins.