Part 1: Himalayas – Part 2: Afghanistan – Part 3: Switzerland
Thailand, or what was known until 1949 as Siam, is a country with a long and rich history. Yet it’s peculiar border, particularly with Burma, is a direct result of the struggle between the French and British Empire during the years of colonization in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Here is a map of Southeat Asia in 1686, with the borders of Siam highlighted in red.
Here is modern map showing the nations of Southeast Asia in 1713.
So what happened to make Thailand’s bizarre border with Burma that exists today? I’m speaking specifically of the thick yellow line on the map below.
What an ugly border. Compared to historical maps, Burma annexed Thailand’s coast along the Andaman Sea. Not surprisingly, smuggling of drugs and other illegal goods is rampant along the border, which is impossible to monitor with regularity.
When France occupied Indochina (modern-day Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia) and Britain colonized Burma and the Malay Peninsula, the two European powers agreed that Siam should remain independent and thus keep the colonies from sharing a border that would inherently lead to troublesome disputes.
But their respect for the Siamese King ended there. Both Britain and France gave little attention to the country’s sovereignty and took as much land as they felt necessary. The British, who controlled India and Burma, took the coast but left the jungle, hence the bizarre (and pourous) border along that thin stretch of land.
You can read the details of the history in this Wikipedia article.
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COMMENTS / 6 COMMENTS
ComingAnarchy.com » Blog Archive » Alternative Borders II: Oceania added these pithy words on Jun 15 06 at 2:17 pm[...] Previously, Curzon wrote a series entitled “Buffer States” which explained the sometimes bizarre borders that certain countries have and at times, even the existence of countries which without outside imperial powers, probably wouldn’t exist. One of those states was Thailand. Not long ago, I mapped out my vision of the future of the Balkans. Next came possible alternative borders for Central Asia. Today’s map is one possible future for Oceania. [...]
sun bin added these pithy words on 01 Oct 05 at 10:08 pmCurzon complained no comment on this more interesting post. so let me try a few words.
i think the ugly stripe is not directly related to the buffer state concept (indirectly it is, because otherwise the border would have been pushed further east), but rather for 2 related reasons
1. the power state (in this case Great Britain) encroaching on a much weaker buffer state (Thailand)
2. the convience of controlling the coastal area (contrast with the difficulty in going into the mountain) during that period of timei will illustrate the points below:
another example of 1: britsh india pushing the border to tibet with the McMahon line (which subsequently led to the NEPA/arunachal dispute) – see wiki
as a result, burma inherited the territory ot the british, so did the indians.another example of 2, see the south-east coastal strip of alaska (Juneau), showing the russian explorers only managed to (or care to) map the coastal strip, before they encountered the British.
in fact, we see many of these narrow strips in historic maps, but not may preserve the forms till today. the fact the alska/canada border is a straight line further north shows the area remain unexplored when the border was drawn
http://www.alaska-wintercabin.com/map.jpg(less prominent example may include Trieste in NE Italy, Russia’s black sea and far east borders in pursuit of a non-frozen harbor, ancient china’s control of the north 1/4 of present day vietnam for most of the past 2000 years, ...)
http://www.pickatrail.com/jupiter/location/europe/italy/trieste.html
sun bin added these pithy words on 01 Oct 05 at 10:13 pmthe link to map seems to be messed up
http://www.pickatrail.com/jupiter/location/europe/italy/trieste.html
Dan added these pithy words on 12 Oct 05 at 10:31 pmRandom thought: why didn’t Britain take southern Thailand, thus linking Malaya and India? It’s not like that would have encroached on French rights…
sun bin added these pithy words on 13 Oct 05 at 12:02 amMy speculation is that it was too costly to build roads at these jungles and mountains. Boats were more economical to link burma and malaya. So linking land mass was not a priority for them back then.
Admiral added these pithy words on 12 Feb 06 at 11:02 pmOrson Scott Card had some interesting observations on Thailand in some of his recent “Ender’s Shadow” series. He declared that on the whole the Thai people had never been conquered in history. Occupied, influence, perhaps… but never conquered, and if we are to read Card literally, apparently they will form quite the air force in the next several years. :)
