This photo is from Patong Beach. Take a look in our photo gallery for more beach photos.
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.