Thailand is the country in Southeast Asia most visited by tourists, and for good reason. You can find almost anything here: thick jungle as green as can be, crystal blue waters that feel more like a warm bath than a swim in the ocean, and food that can curl your nose hairs while tap dancing across your taste buds. Exotic, yet safe; cheap, yet equipped with every modern amenity you need, there is something for every interest and every price bracket, from beach front backpacker bungalows to some of the best luxury hotels in the world. And despite the heavy flow of tourism, Thailand retains its quintessential identity, with a culture and history all its own and a carefree people famed for their smiles and their fun-seeking sanuk lifestyle. Many travellers come to Thailand and extend their stay well beyond their original plans and others never find a reason to leave. Whatever your cup of tea is, they know how to make it in Thailand.
This is not to say that Thailand doesn't have its downsides, including the considerable growing pains of an economy where an agricultural labourer is lucky to earn 100 baht per day while the nouveaux riches cruise past in their BMWs. Bangkok, the capital, is notorious for its traffic jams and rampant development has wrecked much of once-beautiful Pattaya and Phuket. In heavily touristed areas, some lowlifes, both Thai and farang, have made scamming tourists into an art form.
Finally, despite being relatively economically developed, Thailand still suffers from problems that afflict most Southeast Asian countries, such as new towns and neighbourhoods built haphazardly and with no concern for architectural beauty, the lack of accessibility and pedestrian-friendliness in large cities, and often, presence of trash and litter in both cities and rural areas.
The earliest identifiable Thai kingdom was founded in Sukhothai in 1238, reaching its zenith under King Ramkhamhaeng in the 14th century before falling under the control of the kingdom of Ayutthaya, which ruled most of present-day Thailand and much of today's Laos and Cambodia as well, eventually also absorbing the northern kingdom of Lanna. Ayutthaya was sacked in 1767 by the Burmese, but King Taksin regrouped and founded a new capital at Thonburi. His successor, General Chakri, moved across the river to Bangkok and became King Rama I, the founding father of the Chakri dynasty that still rules in a constitutional monarchy.
Known as Siam until 1939, Thailand is Southeast Asia's oldest independent country and the only one never to have been colonised by a foreign power, and the country's inhabitants are fiercely proud of that fact. A bloodless revolution in 1932 led to a constitutional monarchy. During World War II, while Japan conquered the rest of Southeast Asia (see Pacific War), only Thailand was not conquered by the Japanese due to smart political moves. Allied with Japan during World War II, Thailand became a US ally following the conflict. Thailand was a base of US air operations during the Vietnam War, and was also a popular place for American soldiers fighting in Vietnam to have their R&R, thus kickstarting Thailand's world famous tourism industry. There was a communist insurgency, with little success, that only ended in 1983. After a string of military dictatorships and quickly toppled civilian prime ministers, Thailand stabilized into a fair approximation of a democracy and the economy boomed through tourism and industry.
On December 26, 2004, an earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a tsunami to hit Thailand's western coast, causing tremendous damage and killing thousands of people, especially at the seaside resorts.
In September 2006, a swift and bloodless military coup overthrew populist tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra's democratically-elected but widely criticized government, exposing a fault line between the urban elite that has ruled Thailand traditionally and the rural masses that supported Thaksin. Thaksin went into exile and a series of unstable governments followed, with the successors of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party and the royalist-conservative People's Alliance for Democracy duking it out both behind the scenes and, occasionally, out in the streets, culminating in Bangkok's airports being seized and shut down for a week in Nov 2008.
A new party led by Thaksin's sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, won the 2011 elections, but while like Thaksin, she maintained popularity in the Central Thai countryside, the North and Isaan, and among Muslims in the South, powerful people in the Thai military and the Bangkok establishment never accepted the legitimacy of her government, and on May 7, 2014, Thailand's Constitutional Court ordered her and her cabinet to step down. On May 22, 2014, the Thai army staged a bloodless coup, declared a nationwide curfew, and went about arresting members of Yingluck's Pheu Thai Party. The curfew was lifted on June 13, 2014, but the basic elements that have led to the conflict are still unresolved.
After the death in late 2016 of King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), the world's longest-reigning monarch and a deeply loved and respected figure of near-mythic proportions, his son King Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun (Rama X) ascended the throne. King Vajiralongkorn does not have anything close to the popularity that his father had, and his reign has been marred by youth-led protests calling for the abolition of the monarchy. A general election was held in March 2019 under a new 2017 Constitution, thus returning Thailand to democracy. However, the new constitution gives the military the exclusive right to appoint senators, and also gives senators a vote in selecting the prime minister, thus granting the military substantial influence in Thai politics.
Thailand has grown into the main economic centre of the region, and today attracts many migrant workers from its much poorer neighbours Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
Thailand lies north of the equator and comprises an area of 513,120 sq kms. The country features a landscape of varied topography including mountain ranges, fertile river plains and plateaus. The coastline has a total area of 3,219 kms and contains 1,430 offshore islands.
The Kingdom of Thailand (ราชอาณาจักรไทย Ratcha-anachak Thai) is a constitutional monarchy, with the king as head of state. The Thai parliament is bicameral, consisting of a military-appointed upper house known as the Senate, as well as a popularly-elected lower house known as House of Representatives. The prime minister is the head of government, and is voted in by the members of both houses of parliament.
In practice, the king's role is largely ceremonial, with the prime minister holding the most authority in government. However, the king and the royal family are still protected by strict lèse-majesté laws, which stipulate long jail terms for anybody convicted of insulting the king or any other members of the royal family.
Thailand is largely tropical. It's hot and humid all year around with temperatures in the 28-35°C range (82-95°F), a degree of relief provided only in the mountains in the far north of Thailand. There are, however, three seasons:
There are local variations to these general patterns. In particular, the Central Gulf Coast of Thailand (including Ko Samui) has the rains reversed, with the dry peak season being May-Oct and the rainy off-season in Nov-Feb.
Thailand's people are largely ethnically Thai, although there are significant minorities of Chinese and assimilated Thai-Chinese throughout the country, Malays in the south near the Malaysian border, Isaan near the Lao border, and hill tribes such as the Karen and the Hmong in the north of the country. Bangkok has a noticeable minority of ethnic Indians. The overwhelmingly dominant religion (95%) is Theravada Buddhism, although Confucianism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and animist faiths also jostle for position.
Mainland Thai culture is heavily influenced by Buddhism. However, unlike the Buddhist countries of East Asia, Thailand's Buddhists follow the Theravada school, which is arguably closer to its Indian roots and places a heavier emphasis on monasticism. Thai temples known as wats, resplendent with gold and easily identifiable with their ornate, multicolored, pointy roofs are ubiquitous. Becoming an orange-robed monk for a short period, typically the three-month rainy season, is a common rite of passage for young Thai boys and men. That being said, there are also prominent Mahayana Buddhist temples, most of which were built in Chinese architectural styles to serve the ethnic Chinese community.
One pre-Buddhist tradition that still survives is the spirit house (ศาลพระภูมิ saan phraphuum), usually found at the corner of any house or business, which houses spirits so they don't enter the house and cause trouble. The grander the building, the larger the spirit house, and buildings placed in particularly unlucky spots may have very large ones. Perhaps the most famous spirit house in Thailand is the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, which protects the Erawan Hotel (now the Grand Hyatt Erawan), built in 1956 on a former execution ground, and is now one of the busiest and most popular shrines in the city. It and several other popular shrines pay homage to Hindu deities. Hinduism was once the dominant religion in Thailand prior to the spread of Buddhism, and many traditional Thai arts continue to draw their inspiration from Hindu mythology.
Some traditional arts popular in Thailand include traditional Thai dancing and music, based on religious rituals and Court entertainment. There is a vibrant popular music scene with morlam and lukthung not at all overshadowed by Western style pop. Famously brutal Thai boxing (muay Thai), derived from the military training of Thai warriors, is undoubtedly the country's best known indigenous sport.
In addition to the mainland Thai culture, there are many other cultures in Thailand including those of the "hill tribes" in the northern mountainous regions of Thailand (e.g., Hmong, Karen, Lisu, Lahu, Akha), the southern Muslims, and indigenous island peoples of the Andaman Sea. The ethnic Chinese population has been largely assimilated into Thai culture, though vestiges of their Chinese heritage can still be found in Bangkok's Chinatown. The Chinese have, however, left a huge impact on Thailand's culinary scene, and many dishes of Chinese origin, such as noodles, roast pork and steamed buns, have been widely adopted and are now seen as an integral part of Thai cuisine. The Thai-Chinese can generally be divided into two groups; those that migrated to Thailand as traders and labourers during the 19th and early 20th centuries, who mainly came from Fujian, Guangdong or Hainan and settled in the larger cities like Bangkok, Hat Yai and Phuket, and some groups of Kuomintang soldiers who fled China in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War, who mainly came from Yunnan and settled in remote mountain villages along the Burmese border like Mae Salong and Ban Rak Thai.
In addition to the Gregorian calendar, Thailand also uses the Thai solar calendar, the Thai version of the Buddhist calendar, which is 543 years ahead of the common era calendar. Thus, Thai year 2566 corresponds to the Western year 2023. Thai dates in English are often written as B.E., short for "Buddhist Era".
Some Thai holidays are based on the Thai lunar calendar, so their dates change every year in the Western calendar.
Thailand has many holidays, mostly related to Buddhism and the monarchy. Nobody celebrates all of them, except for banks, which seem to be closed a lot.