Phuket Province part 1

"Phuket" redirects here. For the city of the same name, see Phuket City.
Phuket
ภูเก็ต Statistics
Capital: Phuket City
Area: 543.0 km²
Ranked 75th
Inhabitants: 321,802 (2007)
Ranked 68th
Pop. density: 592.63 inh./km²
Ranked 6th
ISO 3166-2: TH-83
Governor: Wichai Phraisa-ngop
(since March 2009)
Map
Map of Thailand highlighting Phuket Province}

Phuket (Thai: ภูเก็ต, IPA: [pʰuːkɛt]; formerly known as Tha-Laang or Talang, or Junk Ceylon in Western sources, a distortion of the Malay Tanjung Salang, i.e. "Cape Salang")[1] is one of the southern provinces (changwat) of Thailand. Neighbouring provinces are (from north clockwise) Phang Nga and Krabi, but as Phuket is an island there are no land boundaries.

Phuket is Thailand’s largest island, approximately the size of Singapore. The island is connected to mainland Thailand by a bridge. It is situated off the west coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. The region has an area of approximately 570sq. kms. and is made up of 1 large and 39 small islands. Phuket formerly derived its wealth from tin and rubber.[citation needed] The island was on one of the major trading routes between India and China, and was frequently mentioned in foreign trader’s ship logs. The region now derives much of its income from tourism.

History
The French ambassador Chevalier de Chaumont with king Narai.

In the 17th century, the Dutch, the English, and from the 1680s the French, competed with each other for trade with the island of Phuket (the island was named Junk Ceylon at that time), which was valued as a very rich source of tin. In September 1680, a ship from the French East India Company visited Phuket and left with a full cargo of tin. In 1681 or 1682, the Siamese king Narai, who was seeking to reduce Dutch and English influence, named Governor of Phuket the French medical missionary Brother René Charbonneau, a member of the Siam mission of the Société des Missions Etrangères. Charbonneau held the position of Governor until 1685.[2]

In 1685, king Narai confirmed the French tin monopoly in Phuket to a French ambassador, the Chevalier de Chaumont.[3] Chaumont's former maître d'hôtel Sieur de Billy was named governor of the island.[4] The French were expelled from Siam in 1688 however, following the 1688 Siamese revolution. On April 10, 1689, the French general Desfarges led an expedition to re-capture the island of Phuket in an attempt to restore some sort of French control in Siam.[5] The occupation of the island led nowhere, and Desfarges returned to Pondicherry in January 1690.[6]

The Burmese attacked Phuket in 1785. Captain Francis Light, a British East India Company captain passing by the island, sent word to the local administration that he had observed Burmese forces preparing to attack. Than Phu Ying Chan, the wife of the recently deceased governor, and her sister Mook(คุณมุก) then assembled what forces they could. After a month-long siege, the Burmese were forced to retreat March 13, 1785. The two women became local heroines, receiving the honorary titles Thao Thep Krasatri and Thao Si Sunthon from King Rama I. During the reign of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), Phuket became the administrative center of the tin-producing southern provinces. In 1933 Monthon Phuket (มณฑลภูเก็จ)was dissolved and Phuket became a province by itself. Old names of the island include Ko Thalang