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Thailand
Thailand is a unified kingdom, previously
known by the name
Siam.
It was officially established in 1238 AD, the traditional founding
date. The kingdom is the only Southeast Asian country never to have
been colonized by a European power. It is located in Southeast Asia,
southeast of
Burma,
bordering the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand, and covers an
area of 514,000 kmē, whereof 511,770 kmē is land and 2,230 kmē is
water. Of 4,000 km water ways 3,701 km are navigable throughout the
year by boats with a draught up to 0.9 meters. Its land boundaries
total 4,863 km, bordering 1,800 km to Burma, 803 km to
Cambodia,
1,754 km to Laos and 506 km to
Malaysia,
whilst its coastline is 3,219 km long. The climate is tropical to
subtropical, that is, rainy, warm and cloudy during the southwest
monsoon from mid-May to September, dry and cool during the northeast
monsoon from November to mid-March, whilst the southern isthmus is
always hot and humid. The highest point is
Doi Inthanon,
with an altitude of 2,565.33 meters. The population reaches nearly
65 million, of which 75% is Thai, 14% Chinese, and 11% other, with a
33.4 million strong workforce of which 49% work in agriculture, 14%
in the industry and 37% in services. The main industries are
tourism, textiles and garments, agricultural processing, beverages,
tobacco, cement, light manufacturing such as jewelry, electric
appliances and components, computers and parts, furniture and
plastics, whilst also being the world's second-largest tungsten
producer, and third-largest producer of
tin. The main agriculture
products are
rice,
cassava,
rubber, corn,
sugarcane,
coconuts
and
soybeans. Natural resources
include tin, rubber, natural gas, tungsten, timber, lead,
fish,
gypsum, lignite and arable land. Thailand has a free-enterprise
economy and welcomes foreign investment. Exports feature textiles
and footwear, fishery products, rice, rubber, jewelry, automobiles,
computers and electrical appliances. With 95%, the majority of the
people practice
Buddhism,
mainly the
Theravada school; other religions include 3.8%
Islam,
0.5%
Christianity, 0.1%
Hinduism,
and 0.6% others. Besides the capital
Bangkok,
which is not a province but a
special administrative area that is administered as a province,
there are 77 provinces. The Thai currency is the ‘baht’.
In Chinese, known as
Tai Guo.
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