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Chanthaburi (จันทบุรี)
Thai. ‘City of the moon’ or ‘moon city’. The capital of Chanthaburi
province (map)
in East Thailand, 245 kms Southeast of
Bangkok, with a population of approximately 40,000
inhabitants in the city and around
480,060 in the province which
also has a significant minority of native Vietnamese citizens. Those
first arrived there after fleeing from the 19th century
anti-Catholic persecutions, later from French rule in Indochina and
once again after the 1975 communist victory in Vietnam. In the South
the province borders the Gulf of Thailand and in the East it runs
alongside the Cambodian province of Battambang. Like
Trat, the city is known for the trade in sapphires and
rubies and for the nearby mining of these gemstones. The province
is the country's main production centre for dried
rice
noodles and it is the place
where general
Taksin formed an army to
drive away the Burmese
after they had conquered and destroyed
Ayutthaya
in 1767,
causing its definitive downfall.
This event is remembered in the town by a monument in King Taksin
Park (map
-
fig.).
After the Paknahm incident of 13 July 1893, in a dispute over the
Laotian border in which France sent its troops into territories on
the left bank of the
Mekhong river
and moored several gunboats to blockade the Gulf of Thailand at the
mouth of the
Chao Phraya River, the French colonist
army on 29 July 1893 occupied the western
part of Chanthaburi, not pulling their troops out until 1903, after
which they went on to occupy Trat. In 1906 the French eventually
pulled all their troops out of Siamese territory, after
Siam
gave up ownership of the western part of
Cambodia.
The province has several national parks, the more popular being Nahm
Tok Phliw National Park (map
-
fig.).
Due to its
similarity in name,
ton jan or
ton
chan (ต้นจันทร์,
ต้นจัน or
ต้นจันทน์),
i.e. the
Gold Apple,
a tree
with the botanical name Diospyros decandra, is the provincial tree
of Chanthaburi province,
which has 9
amphur and one
king amphur, 76
tambon and 690
mu ban.
Compare with
Chanthabuli. See also
Chanthaburi data file.
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