About Phuket

Welcome to Phuket. (update 12 June 2007) In its 4 March 2006 update, the TAT reported that Phuket has 532 establishments offering 31,778 hotel rooms, half of which are three star accommodations. Now in the green season you can find special discount deals in guesthouses, hotels and resorts and many airlines have special deals. Welcome

Phuket Island

Phuket Island has 17 sandy beaches.

Koh Phuket is Thailand's largest Island. It is 50 km long north to south and 21 km wide and joined to the mainland by Sarasin bridge.

Phuket has been inhabited since the early days of mankind by ancient tribes and this still keeps archaeologists occupied to find out the history from the early days.On the ancient maps of the region around Thailand's South West coast, the name Junk Ceylon can be seen describing a way station on the route between India and China where seafarers stopped to shelter. This Island is today known as Phuket.

Phuket Island was assumed by geologists to be once part of the mainland in the form of a cape sticking out into the Andaman Sea but millions of years later the cape was gradually eroded by natural forces and finally detached from the main land.

One of the first known traces of Phuket is from a book written around the year 157 by Claudius Ptolemy, a famous Greek philosopher, that to travel to Malay Peninsula by ship, the travelers had to pass a cape known as Junk Ceylon. Located between latitudes 6 N and 8 N (which is the present site of Phuket Island), Junk Ceylon was at that time visited by merchants of several nations including India, Persia, and Arabia. The island offered a bay that protected its harbor from the wind and monsoon, making it a good stopover. Moreover, it had plenty of tin ore deposits that fetched high prices at that time.

Moment in Phuket history was when a passing sea captain, Francis Light, sent word that the Burmese were en route to attack. Forces in Phuket were assembled led by the two heroines, Kunying Jan, Thao Thep Krasattri, wife of Phuket's recently deceased governor, and her sister Mook, Thao Si Sunthon. There was a shortage of men so she allegedly ordered 500 women to dress as soldiers with coconut palms daubed in soot to look like weapons. This tactic seemed to delay a full-on Burmese attack. After a month's siege the Burmese were forced to depart on 13 March, 1785. Kunying Jan and her sister were credited with the successful defense.The Burmese attacked Phuket three more times between 1809-12 but armed forces from Bangkok arrived in time to repel further Burmese onslaughts. With Burma's capitulation to the British, ensured that there would be no more Burmese invasions of Thailand.

During the Nineteenth Century Chinese immigrants arrived in such numbers to work for the tin mines that the ethnic character of the island's interior became predominantly Chinese, while the coastal settlements remained populated essentially by Muslim fishermen.

In Rama V's reign, Phuket became the administrative center of a group of tin mining provinces called Monton Phuket, and in 1933, with the change in government from absolute monarchy to a parliamentary system, the island was established as a province by itself.

It was not until 1967 that Sarasin Bridge was built to connect the main land with Phuket.
Tin mining industry has played a specially important role in the economic development of the island province but it has declined especially after 1985 when the price of tin fell by half. Other important products of Phuket are marine products, latex, rubber, fuel oil and frozen fish.
With the opening of an international airport in 1976, Phuket effectively became a tourist economy. Over 4 million tourists arrived to Phuket in year 2002 and they spent about 72 billion baht on the island.

The permanent Island Population consists of a total of 292,245 (end 2005) with 140,703 males and 151,542 females. They consist of Thai-Buddhist, 71%; Muslim 25%; and Chao Le (Sea Gypsy) 4%. The majority of population live in Phuket town and at Patong Beach.

Thalang National Museum

If you want to learn more about the history of Phuket we recommend a visit to the Thalang National Museum. This museum was established in 1985 in Thalang just 200 meters from the Heroines Monument. Built in a southern architectural style, the museum exhibits the Battle of Thalang, the way of life, culture and history of Phuket and the South.


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