FACTBOX - Key facts about Myanmar

(Reuters) - The first U.S. military aid flight landed in Myanmar on Monday, but relief supplies continued to just dribble into the reclusive state nine days after a devastating cyclone.

The U.N. humanitarian agency said in a new assessment on Sunday that between 1.2 million and 1.9 million were struggling to survive in the aftermath of the storm and the number of deaths could range up to 100,000.

Here are some key facts about Myanmar, a former British colony:

WHO IS RUNNING THE COUNTRY?

-- Having won independence in 1948, what was then called Burma was roiled by political feuding and ethnic guerrilla conflicts until a 1962 coup. It has been run by the army ever since and ethnic insurgencies, in many cases fuelled by the opium trade, continue to rumble on.

WHO MAKES UP THE COUNTRY?

-- Although it is home to more than 100 different ethnic groups, nearly 70 percent of its 53 million people are ethnic Burman. Significant minorities are the Shan and predominantly Christian Karen.

WHAT IS THE STATE OF ITS ECONOMY?

-- Ranked as one of Asia's most promising economies in the 1950s, it is now one of the region's poorest nations, due mainly to decades of disastrous socialist central planning by the military government.