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For
cultural purposes, Thailand may be divided into four areas,
namely the Northern, the North-Eastern, the Central and the
Southern areas.
 The
Northern area is a mountainous region and its pre-dominant people are Thai, usually called Thai Nuea or Northern Thai. The Thai live in the
lowland of the valleys while on the uplands live a number of primitive tribes belonging mostly to the two linguistic families the Mon-Khmer and the Thibeto-Burmans.
The North- Eastern area is
a vast plateau tilted towards south-east and drained by the
river Mekhong which forms the eastern boundary between Thailand
and French Indo-china. The people in this legion are also predo
minantly Thai usually called the Lao. Across the river Mekhong
on the left bank also live the Laos of Lao State. Living in
isolated groups are the Phutai, another tribe of Thai stock
whose former home was in French Indo-China, and a number of
minoritie s mostly of the Mon-Khmer family.
 The
Central area consists
of one vast lowland plain watered by the Menam, or, to call it
by the real name, the river Chao Phya, and other river systems.
Here live the Thai or Siamese. There are in this area small c
ommunities of Mons and Cam-bodians of the Mon-Kkmer family,
Annamites, Malays and Burmans mostly Tavoyans, a tribe akin to
the Aracanese of Burma.
 In
the Southern area,
throughout the Malay Peninsula, are the Thai, but in the
southernmost parts the people are mostly of Malayan blood. (See
further details of the physical features and ethnology of
Thailand in Siam, Nature and Industry published by the Ministry
of Commerce and Communications, Bangkok 1930).
Ethnologically
and culturally, these fore areas overlap one another and affect
reciprocally also Thailand's neighbours i.e. the Cambodians in
the southeast, the Burmans in the north-east, and the Malayans
in the south. Later on come other races, the Chinese, the
Indians, the Indonesians, and other Asiatic races, and lastly
but in no way of least importance, the Europeans and Americans
who affect radically the traditional culture of |
