Phuket Tourist Association

Why Choose Our Destination?

Phuket was a way station on the route between India and China where seafarers stopped to shelter. The island appears to have been part of the Shivite empire (called in Thai the Tam Porn Ling) that established itself on the Malay Peninsula during the first Millennium A.D. Later, as Muang Takua-Thalang, it was part of a constellation of twelve cities, Phuket’s emblem, by which it was known to others in the those largely pre literate times, was the dog. During the Sukhothai Period, Phuket was associated with Takua Pah in what is now Phang-Nga Province, another area with vast tin reserves. The Dutch established a trading post during the Ayuthaya Period in the 16th Century. The island’s northern and central regions then were governed by the Thais, and the southern and western parts were given over to the tin trade, a concession in the hands of foreigners.