History of Thailand

Archaeological discoveries around the northeast hamlet of Ban Chiang suggest that one of the world's oldest Bronze Age Civilisations was flourishing in Thailand over 5,000 years ago. Over centuries, successive waves of immigrants, including Mons, Khmers and chinese gradually entered present day Thailand, mostly via fertile river valleys from southern China. By the 11th and 12th centuries, the powerful Khmers ruled much of the area from their vast city at Angkor. By the early 1200s, however, the Thais had established small nortehern city-states in Lanna, Phayao and Sukhothai.

In 1238, two Thai chieftains defeated the local Khmer commander, and established Sukothai as the first truly independent Thai Kingdom. Sukhothai prospered and grew, expanding throughout the entire Chao Phraya river basin. Theravada Buddhism was established as the Thai religion. In Thai alphabet was created, and the first expressions of nascent Thai art from, including painting, sculpture, architecture and literature, emerged.

Thai third Sukhothai king, Ramkham-haeng, (1275-1317) combined his military skills, diplomacy, trading, expertise, and cultural gifts to bring the kingdom to its zenith. During his reign, Sukhothai bordered Lanna in the north, Vientiane in the east, the upper part of Malay Peninsula in the south, and parts of Burma in the west.

However, following his death, subsequent rulers were more interested in religion than defence. Sukhothai thus became an easy military target, and eventually succumbed to Ayutthaya, a dynamic young kingdom further south in the Chao Phraya River valley. Ayutthaya was destined to become one of the world's greatest and most beautiful cities, noted to have been far greater than either London or Paris during that period.

After more than 400 years of power, the kingdom of Ayutthaya capitulated to invading Burmese armies in 1767, and its capital was burned. The Burmese were subsequently expelled by king Taksin, who later made Thon Buri his capital. In 1782, the first king of the present Chakri Dynasty, Rama I, established a new capital on the site of riverside hamlet called Bangkok, opposite Thon Buri.

After British victories in Burma in 1826, the clever diplomacy and reformation of internal policies, particularly those of the legal system, by king Mongkut (Rama IV 1851-1868) and his son Chulalongkon (Rama V, 1868-1910) are widely believed to have save Thailand (Know as Siam until 1938) from western colonisation.

In 1932, a bloodless coup transformed the Government of Thailand from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy, but the country was controlled mainly by a series of military governments until 1992, when elections established Thailand as a functioning democracy with constitutional changes of government.