Why Thailand looks like an elephant’s head

An elephant facing west

Thailand has a main section in the north and a peninsular extension in the south that runs down the Malay Peninsula to Malaysia.^[2] Thais compare the shape to an elephant’s head seen in profile, facing west, with the southern peninsula as the dangling trunk.^[1]

Siam, as Thailand was officially called until 1939, was never brought under European colonial rule.^[2] Its outline is what was left after it gave up its claims to neighbouring lands, piece by piece, to keep that independence.^[5]

Between France and Britain

By the late 19th century France ruled Cochinchina, Cambodia and Annam, and Britain had spread into Burma; both began occupying lands also claimed by Siam.^[3] King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) followed his father’s policy of giving up territory to Western powers in the hope of keeping Siam independent.^[5]

In 1893, after French gunboats forced their way up the Chao Phraya River to Bangkok, he had to cede to France all the Lao lands east of the Mekong, by a treaty of 3 October 1893.^[5][4] After that crisis, Britain and France agreed in 1896 not to occupy the Chao Phraya valley, which kept the heart of the country safe but left the northeast exposed.^[3] France took Sayaboury, now in Laos, and part of what is now Cambodia in 1904, and Siem Reap, Battambang and Sisophon in 1907.^[3]

In the south Siam gave up its claim to the Malay sultanates of Kedah, Terengganu, Perlis and Kelantan, which passed to British protection under a treaty signed in Bangkok on 10 March 1909. Today’s border with Malaysia comes from that treaty.^[6]

Lost and lost again

Some in Thailand still saw the lands given up in 1904 and 1907 as theirs. After France fell in 1940 Thai troops attacked French forces there, and a convention signed in Tokyo on 9 May 1941, under Japanese pressure, returned the Cambodian territories to Thailand. After the war France demanded them back, and a settlement of 17 November 1946 gave them back.^[3] During the war Thailand also briefly regained the four Malay states, which went back to British administration afterwards.^[6]