The MettaDana Project is located in the Sagaing Hills of Burma. The Hills lie on the western bank of the Ayeyarwadi (Irrawaddy) River, opposite the city of Mandalay. The Sagaing area has been a center of Buddhist practice for over a millennium, and is now filled with hundreds of pagodas, monasteries, and nunneries housing thousands of monks, nuns, and novices. Many pagodas date back to the 14th century when Sagaing was the capital of Burma, and it has remained one of the most important practice centers of Theravadan Buddhism since that time.