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Birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej of the Kingdom of Thailand

Thailand, country located in the centre of mainland Southeast Asia. Located wholly within the tropics, Thailand encompasses diverse ecosystems, including the hilly forested areas of the northern frontier, the fertile rice fields of the central plains, the broad plateau of the northeast, and the rugged coasts along the narrow southern peninsula. Until the second half of the 20th century, Thailand was primarily an agricultural country, but since the 1960s increasing numbers of people have moved to Bangkok, the capital, and to other cities. Although the greater Bangkok metropolitan area remains the preeminent urban centre in the country, there are other sizable cities, such as Chiang Mai in the north, Nakhon Ratchasima (Khorat), Khon Kaen, and Udon Thani in the northeast, Pattaya in the southeast, and Hat Yai in the far south. Siam, as Thailand was officially called until 1939, was never brought under European colonial domination. Independent Siam was ruled by an absolute monarchy until a revolution there in 1932. Since that time, Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy, and all subsequent constitutions have provided for an elected parliament. Political authority, however, has often been held by the military, which has taken power through coups. During the last two decades of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st, parliamentary democracy steadily gained wider popular support. Although a crisis emerged in 2006, when the military, aligned with the monarchy, overthrew an elected government, new parliamentary elections were held—as promised by the interim government—in 2007. Land of Thailand Thailand, which has about the same land area as Spain or France, consists of two broad geographic areas: a larger main section in the north and a smaller peninsular extension in the south. The main body of the country is surrounded by Myanmar (Burma) to the west, Laos to the north and east, Cambodia to the southeast, and the Gulf of Thailand to the south. Peninsular Thailand stretches southward from the southwestern corner of the country along the eastern edge of the Malay Peninsula; Myanmar extends along the western portion of the peninsula as far as the Isthmus of Kra, after which Thailand occupies the entire peninsula until reaching its southern border with Malaysia at roughly latitude 6° N. Relief Thailand’s landscapes vary from low mountains to fertile alluvial plains dotted with rice paddies to sandy beaches set amid the equatorial latitudes of the Asian monsoons. The country is divided into five distinct physiographic regions: the folded mountains in the north and west, the Khorat Plateau in the northeast, the Chao Phraya River basin in the centre, the maritime corner of the central region in the southeast, and the long, slender peninsular portion in the southwest. The northern mountains, the southeastern continuation of the uplift process that formed the Himalayas, extend southward along the Thai-Myanmar border and reach as far south as northern Malaysia. Long granitic ridges were formed when great masses of molten rock forced their way upward through the older sedimentary strata. Peaks average about 5,200 feet (l,600 metres) above sea level. Mount Inthanon, at 8,481 feet (2,585 metres) the highest in the country, is in northwestern Thailand, near the historical city of Chiang Mai. The city is overshadowed by Mount Suthep, site of a famous Buddhist shrine and the royal summer palace. Some of the rugged limestone hills contain caves from which remains of prehistoric humans have been excavated. The northeast is coterminous with the Khorat Plateau, a vast tableland bounded by the Mekong River on the north and east. It was formed by uplifting along two perpendicularly arranged crustal faults—one trending north-south in the west and the other east-west in the south. As a result, the underlying sedimentary rocks were tilted rather than uniformly uplifted. This tilting created ranges of low hills and mountains along the western and southern edges of the plateau: the Phetchabun and Dangrek (Thai: Dong Rak) mountains, respectively. The escarpments of these uplands overlook the plain of the Chao Phraya basin to the west and the Cambodian plain to the south. Surface elevations on the Khorat Plateau range from about 650 feet (200 metres) in the northwest to some 300 feet (90 metres) in the southeast. The terrain is rolling, and the hilltops generally slope to the southeast in conformity with the tilt of the land. Situated between the northern and western mountain ranges and the Khorat Plateau is the extensive Chao Phraya River basin, which is the cultural and economic heartland of Thailand. The region, sometimes called the Central Plain, consists of two portions: heavily dissected rolling plains in the north and the flat, low-lying floodplain and delta of the Chao Phraya in the south. It was formed by the outwash of immense quantities of sediment brought down from the mountains by the Chao Phraya’s tributaries, which produced vast fan-shaped alluvial deposits. The generally rolling countryside of the southeast has high hills in the centre and along the eastern boundary with Cambodia. Notable peaks are Mount Khieo, which rises to 2,614 feet (797 metres), and Mount Soi Dao, which attains a height of 5,471 feet (1,668 metres). The hills, reaching nearly to the sea, create a markedly indented coastline fringed with many islands. With their long stretches of sandy beach, such coastal towns as Chon Buri and Rayong and some of the islands have become popular year-round tourist resorts. The southwestern portion of the country consists of a peninsula with a mountainous spine and a gently sloping sandy coastline. Higher mountains reaching about 4,900 feet (1,500 metres) line the peninsula on the west and contain narrow passes linking Thailand and Myanmar. These ranges separate the Andaman and South China seas as the peninsula narrows near the Malaysian border. Off the rugged and much-indented west coast lie numerous large islands, including tin-rich Phuket Island, which, with other islands such as Samui and Phiphi, have become tourist destinations, surpassing in popularity Hua Hin, the old coastal resort located in the northern part of the peninsula. More … Source: https://www.britannica.com/place/Thailand

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2024/12/05

New Normal Amazing Thailand

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2024/12/04

Visit Dubai - Official Tourism Board in Dubai

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2024/12/04

About LaoSafe - Tourism Laos

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2024/12/03

Independence day of the United Arab Emirates

United Arab Emirates, federation of seven emirates along the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. The largest of these emirates, Abu Dhabi (Abū Ẓaby), which comprises more than three-fourths of the federation’s total land area, is the centre of its oil industry and borders Saudi Arabia on the federation’s southern and eastern borders. The port city of Dubai, located at the base of the mountainous Musandam Peninsula, is the capital of the emirate of Dubai (Dubayy) and is one of the region’s most vital commercial and financial centres, housing hundreds of multinational corporations in a forest of skyscrapers. The smaller emirates of Sharjah (Al-Shāriqah), ʿAjman (ʿAjmān), Umm al-Quwain (Umm al-Qaywayn), and Ras al-Khaimah (Raʾs al-Khaymah) also occupy the peninsula, whose protrusion north toward Iran forms the Strait of Hormuz linking the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. The federation’s seventh member, Fujairah (Al-Fujayrah), faces the Gulf of Oman and is the only member of the union with no frontage along the Persian Gulf. Historically the domain of individual Arab clans and families, the region now comprising the emirates also has been influenced by Persian culture owing to its close proximity to Iran, and its porous maritime borders have for centuries invited migrants and traders from elsewhere. In the 18th century, Portugal and the Netherlands extended their holdings in the region but retreated with the growth of British naval power there; following a series of truces with Britain in the 19th century, the emirates united to form the Trucial States (also called Trucial Oman or the Trucial Sheikhdoms). The states gained autonomy following World War II (1939–45), when the trucial states of Bahrain and Qatar declared independent statehood. The rest were formally united in 1971, with the city of Abu Dhabi serving as the capital. The stability of the federation has since been tested by rivalries between the families governing the larger states of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, though external events such as the Persian Gulf War (1990–91) and an ongoing territorial dispute with Iran have served to strengthen the emirates’ political cohesion. The emirates comprise a mixed environment of rocky desert, coastal plains and wetlands, and waterless mountains. The seashore is a haven for migratory waterfowl and draws birdwatchers from all over the world; the country’s unspoiled beaches and opulent resorts also have drawn international travelers. Standing at a historic and geographic crossroads and made up of diverse nationalities and ethnic groups, the United Arab Emirates present a striking blend of ancient customs and modern technology, of cosmopolitanism and insularity, and of wealth and want. The rapid pace of modernization of the emirates prompted travel writer Jonathan Raban to note of the capital: “The condition of Abu Dhabi was so evidently mint that it would not have been surprising to see adhering to the buildings bits of straw and polystyrene from the crates in which they had been packed.” Land of the United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates is slightly smaller in area than Portugal. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the west and south and by Oman to the east and northeast. The precise borders of the country have remained a matter of dispute. Despite a 1974 secret agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia said to have resolved their three border disputes, the agreement’s legal standing is unclear. The United Arab Emirates claims a strip of coastline that borders Qatar to the northwest, which Saudi Arabia claims was ceded to it in the 1974 agreement. It likewise disputes Saudi claims over the Shaybah oil field to the south, while Saudi Arabia (as well as Oman) has at times challenged the emirates’ claim on oases around the city of Al-Ain. Since the early 1990s, moreover, the emirates have been in a dispute with Iran over the ownership of three islands—Abū Mūsā and Greater and Lesser Tunb (Ṭunb al-Kubrā and Ṭunb al-Ṣughrā). Relief Nearly the entire country is desert, containing broad areas of sand. Some of the world’s largest sand dunes are located east of ʿArādah in the oases of Līwā. Important oases are at Al-Ain about 100 miles (160 km) east of Abu Dhabi. Along the eastern portion of the Musandam Peninsula, the northern extension of the Ḥajar Mountains (also shared by Oman) offers the only other major relief feature; elevations rise to about 6,500 feet (2,000 metres) at their highest point. The Persian Gulf coast is broken by shoals and dotted with islands that offer shelter to small vessels. There are no natural deepwater harbours, however; both Dubai’s Port Rāshid and the gigantic Port Jebel Ali, 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Dubai city, are human-made, as are major ports in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Ras al-Khaimah. The coast of the Gulf of Oman is more regular and has three natural harbours—Dibba, Khor Fakkan, and Kalbā. Drainage The United Arab Emirates has no perennial streams nor any regularly occurring bodies of surface water. Precipitation, what little falls, is drained from the mountains in the form of seasonal wadis that terminate in inland salt flats, or sabkhahs, whose drainage is frequently blocked by the country’s constantly shifting dunes. In the far west the Maṭṭī Salt Flat extends southward into Saudi Arabia, and coastal sabkhahs, which are occasionally inundated by the waters of the Persian Gulf, lie in the areas around Abu Dhabi. Climate The climate is hot and humid along the coast and is hotter still, but dry, in the interior. Rainfall averages only 4 to 6 inches (100 to 150 mm) annually, though it fluctuates considerably from year to year. The average January temperature is 64 °F (18 °C), while in July the temperature averages 91 °F (33 °C). Summertime highs can reach 115 °F (46 °C) on the coast and 120 °F (49 °C) or more in the desert. In midwinter and early summer, winds known as the shamāl (Arabic: “norther”) blow from the north and northwest, bearing dust and sand. Plant and animal life Because of the desert climate, vegetation is scanty and largely limited to the low shrubs that offer forage to nomadic herds, but millions of trees, notably mangroves, have been planted in Abu Dhabi and have provided habitats for various species. In the oases, date palms are raised together with alfalfa (lucerne). Fruits are grown, and the Al-ʿAyn oases east of Abu Dhabi are known for their mangoes. Animal life includes domesticated goats, sheep, and camels, together with cattle and poultry, which were introduced in more recent times. Wildlife consists of predators such as the caracal, sand cat (Felis margarita), and the Ruppell’s (Vulpes ruppelli) and red foxes; larger animals such as the Arabian oryx and Arabian and Persian gazelles; smaller mammals such as the cape hare, lesser jerboa, and various types of gerbil; and a variety of snakes and lizards. The gulf waters harbour schools of mackerel, grouper, tuna, and porgies, as well as sharks and occasional whales. In the 1990s the government initiated a conservation and management program to preserve and protect desert animal and plant life. People - Ethnic groups Only about one-ninth of the emirates’ residents are citizens. The remainder are mostly foreign workers and their dependents, with South Asians constituting the largest of these groups. Arabs from countries other than the United Arab Emirates and Iranians account for another significant portion. Southeast Asians, including many Filipinos, have immigrated in increasing numbers to work in various capacities. Languages and religion The official language of the United Arab Emirates is Arabic. Modern Standard Arabic is taught in schools, and most native Emiratis speak a dialect of Gulf Arabic that is generally similar to that spoken in surrounding countries. A number of languages are spoken among the expatriate community, including various dialects of Pashto, Hindi, Balochi, and Persian. English is also widely spoken. About three-fifths of the population is Muslim, of which roughly four-fifths belong to the Sunni branch of Islam; Shiʿi minorities exist in Dubai and Sharjah. There are also small but growing numbers of Christians and Hindus in the country. More … Source: https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Arab-Emirates    

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2024/12/02

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