Thailand is a country on the mainland of South-East Asia right in the middle of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula. On the north and west she has Burma as her neighbour, and on the north and east she borders on the Kingdom of the Laos and Cambodia and on the south Juts deep into the Malay Peninsula between the China Sea and the Sea of Bengal touching Malaysia. The total area of Thailand is roughly 513,000 square kilometres. Thailand may be divided into four areas, the Central, the Norhtern, the North-Eastern and the Southern. The people of Thailand are called Thai. before 1939 A.D. they were known politically as the Siamese and their country as Siam. the Thai belong to the same ethnic group as the Laos of the Lao kingdom to the North-East Thailand and the Shans of Upper Burma. There are also certain Thai minor tribes to be found scattered here and there over a large area of Southern China, Tongking of North Vietnam, and in Assam, the easternmost province of India. So far as they are known, most groups of these people called themselves Tai or Thai.
The History
Long before the advent of the Thai into Thailand, there lived in Central Thailand or the Menam Basin, in or about the 5th to the 7th century A.D., a people probably akin to the Mons of Lower Burma. They are known archaeologically by the name of their kingdom, the so-called Dvaravati. Later in the 11th century the Dvaravati kingdom was under the domination for a time being of the Javanese-Sumatran Empire of Sri Vijaya, later on degenerated in power and held on to a lingering life as a remnant in southern Thailand and which two centuries later became part of modern Thailand. The Dvaravati kingdom in Central Thailand subsequently in the 12th century A.D. became part of the Khmer Empire and later on in the 13th century A.D. passed from the rule of