Thailand

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The Kingdom of Thailand is located in Southeast Asia. It borders Laos and Cambodia in the east and Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia to the south and the Andaman Sea and Myanmar to the west, Originally Thailand was called Siam until June of 1939, when the name was changed to Thailand. The name comes from the Thai word meaning freedom in the Thai language and it is also the names of a majority ethnic group in the country. Because of the location of the country, Thailand has been heavily influenced by China and India. But there are many foreign cultures have existed over the years since the Ban Chiang culture.

The first Siamese/Thai state, the state refers to a legitimate authority to make the rules that govern the people in one or more society. The state includes institutions such as police, civil services, armed services and courts. The state was traditionally considered to be a Buddhist Kingdom that Sukhothai found in 1238. This was following the decline and fall of the Khmer Empire in the 13th through the 15th centuries. About a century later the Sukhothai’s reign was overcome by the larger of the Siamese Kingdom called Ayutthaya which was created and established as a power in the middle of the 14th century.

When Ayutthaya destroyed Angkor in 1431, many of the Khmer courts and the Hindu customs were brought over to Ayuthaya and the customs of Khmer were brought to the culture of Siam. In 1767, the culture of Ayutthaya fell and Thonburi which was the capital of Thailand for a brief period of time under King Taksin the Great. This lasted until a coup d’état orchestrated in 1782. Bangkok becomes the capital of the Chakri dynasty which fell under the rule of King Rama I the Great. In the 16th century other European powers travel through Thailand and in spite of pressure from Europe, Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country that was never colonized by a European power.

Thailand had a long line of very successful rulers in the period of the 1800’s and they able to utilize the competition between the French and the British. The country became a peacekeeper for those parts of Southeast Asia that had been colonized. There was a strong Western influence that started many reforms in the 19th century and that led to major surrenders of British trading. These losses led to the other to three southern provinces being colonized and becoming Malaysia’s three northern states. In 1932, a revolution began and it resulted in a new constitutional monarchy.

During the World War II Thailand was allies with Japan, but after the war ended, Thailand ended up becoming an ally of the United States. Though at the time, Thailand had a very unstable form of government and went through many coups d’état but finally in the 1980’s they were headed down a road to a democratic Kingdom.

In 1997, Thailand was rocked by the Asian financial crisis, which cause the baht which is Thailand’s form of currency that was worth say 56 baht compared to the United States dollar was then worth about 25 baht to the U.S dollar before 1997. Since that time the baht has gotten back some strength and can be traded about 36 to 38 baht to the dollar.

There is probably something most people don’t know about Thailand. That is they do not go by our standard calendar year. There calendar is based on the Eastern version of the Buddhist Era which is about 543 years ahead of the Gregorian Calendar which most of the world uses. Here the year is 2006 but in Thailand it is 2549 BE.

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