THAILAND, GULF OF

formerly Gulf Of Siam, inlet of the South China Sea bordering Thailand (southwest through north), Cambodia, and southern Vietnam (northeast). The Gulf of Thailand is 300 to 350 miles (500 to 560 km) wide and 450 miles (725 km) long. The Chao Phraya and Nakhon Chai Si rivers enter the gulf near its head. The main harbours in Thailand are located along the Gulf of Thailand at Bangkok, Pattani, Songkhla (Singgora), Pak Phanang (port for Nakhon Si Thammarat), and Chanthaburi; in Cambodia at Ram, Kmpt, and Kep; and in Vietnam at Rach Gia. The shallow waters along the gulf's coast provide economically important fishing grounds. History The modern Thai are descended from a much larger group of peoples who speak Tai languages. Tai-speaking peoples are found from extreme northeastern India in the west to northern Vietnam in the east and as far south as the central Malay Peninsula. In the past scholars held that a parent group called the Proto-Tai originated in southern China and pushed south and west from the China landmass into northern mainland Southeast Asia. Most scholars now believe that the Tai came from northern Vietnam around the Dien Bien Phu area and that about 1,000 years ago they spread from there northward into southern China, westward into southwestern China, northern Myanmar (Burma) and northeastern India, and southward into what are now Laos and Thailand. Early Tai culture The Tai were lowland peoples who historically settled along river valleys in northern mainland Southeast Asia and southwestern China. There they formed small settlements where they practiced subsistence agriculture based on rice cultivation, supplemented by fishing and gathering forest products. Early in their history the Tai domesticated animals: they used water buffalo for plowing and ritual purposes and pigs and fowl for food. Women were accorded relatively high social status and could inherit property. The Tai practiced animism; they believed that spirits could be benevolent or malevolent and needed to be propitiated through offerings and special ceremonies. The basic unit of Tai political organization was the mang, or group of villages, ruled by a chao, or hereditary chief or lord. During the 1st millennium AD the political strengths of the mang system enabled the Tai to move out of their original homeland until, by the 8th century, they had expanded across much of northern mainland Southeast Asia. By the 11th century they had begun to filter down into the area of present-day Thailand, and by the middle of the following century they had formed petty principalities there.