Thailand consists of two main geographic areas - a larger northern section and a smaller southern peninsular extension. The northern section is surrounded by Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and the Gulf of Thailand. Thailand's landscapes vary from mountains to rice paddies to beaches. The country is divided into five physiographic regions - folded mountains in the north and west, the Khorat Plateau in the northeast, the Chao Phraya River basin in the center, the southeast maritime region, and the peninsular southwest.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
