Burma, Myanmar, is famous for some of the world’s most valuable and beautiful gemstones, such as rubies, sapphires and imperial jade, …

Alongside these famous rubies, Myanmar also produces high quality sapphires, spinel, garnet, topaz, amethyst, peridot, moonstone and other precious stones. Burmese rubies and other gems are mined primarily in the Valley of Rubies in Moe Goke, Myanmar.

Many gemstones’ distinctive colors come from the presence of transition metals as impurities in an otherwise transparent crystal lattice. This can be because of a so-called crystal-field or, alternatively, a ligand-field effect.