抄録
The history of the Kingdom of Thailand may be considered as an interaction among three distinct regions, namely (1) 'annathai', a group of small kingdoms in the intermountain basins, constituting part of a much larger area extending from south-western China to north-eastern India via Burma, (2) 'muang nua', northern countries, extending from Burma on the west to Cambodia on the east, and (3) the port-polities along the Bay of Thailand. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Ayutthaya, one of these port-polities, flourished thanks to its location as an entrepot on the trade route between the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea and succeeded in incorporating the hinterlands to the north, to eventually establish the geo-political unit of the present Kingdom of Thailand.
