1939 Royal Thai Map of Southeast Asia: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia

This exceptional 1939 Thai-language Royal Thai Survey Department map of Southeast Asia is the first national map of Thailand and the first to use the name 'Thailand' to describe the former Siamese Kingdom. It was published against a backdrop of growing Thai nationalism and Prime Minister Phibun's agenda of pan-Thaism, which sought to establish a 'Greater Thai Kingdom' encompassing the whole of Southeast Asia.

A Closer Look

Coverage embraces the entirety of Southeast Asia, including all of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore, as well as parts of adjacent China, Burma, and Sumatra. Entirely in Thai, the map illustrates roads, canals, mountain paths, towns and villages, district borders, and more. Yellow demarcates the boundaries of Thailand, which correspond loosely with the current borders.

Pan-Thaism and the Greater Thai Kingdom

The map is titled very simply 'Thai' (ไทย), a revolutionary term that had not previously appeared on maps. It is best understood in the context of 1930s nationalism, the resurgence of Thai national identity, the struggles of a new constitutional monarchy, and a reaction to colonialism in the surrounding nations.

In 1932, a group of intellectuals and non-royal military elite overthrew the ancient Siamese monarchy, establishing a Constitutional Monarchy. The leader of the military faction, Plaek Phibunsongkhram (แปลก พิบูลสงคราม; 1897 - 1964), eventually seized power. Although nominally an elected 'Prime Minister', Phibun, as he was commonly known, exerted complete autocratic power. While instituting wide-scale modernizations that mirrored Meiji Era Japan, he also strove to define a unified national identity by normalizing Thai over regional dialects, among other cultural mandates.

Recognizing the rising tensions in Europe and Asia that would eventually devolve into a global conflict, Phibun believed that only large, powerful nations would survive and that smaller nations would be subsumed. He established alliances with similarly-minded nations, including Imperial Japan, and copied much of their rhetoric. Mirroring Japan's vision of pan-Asianism, he promoted pan-Thaisim, what he called the 'Greater Thai Kingdom'. This broad definition of 'Siamese' territory included lands lost during the previous centuries to regional and colonial conflicts, including Laos, Cambodia, and parts of British-dominated Burma and Malaya, in addition to imperial ambitions embracing all of Southeast Asia. Siam was officially renamed 'Thailand' by Phibun's Cultural Mandate No. 1 on June 24, 1939, corresponding with the publication of this map and, roughly, the outbreak of World War II (1939 - 1945).

Sources

The map was compiled from various internal and external sources. It is loosely based on the 1900 James Fitzroy McCarthy map but features significant new content. The interior cartography is based on Royal Thai Territory maps compiled by the Thai Map Department. The western border is derived from the work of the British Survey of India. The eastern and northern sections are drawn from the maps of the Royal Thai Survey Department, compiled in the mid-1930s. The eastern border with French Indochina is based on earlier treaty maps.

Publication History and Census

The Royal Thai Survey Department published this map in 1939 (๒๔๘๒, 2482), the year Siam was renamed Thailand. Its simple and rather ubiquitous title, as well as generally poor cataloging of Thai cartographic material in international collections, makes producing a complete census nearly impossible. We see nothing comparable in OCLC. As an official government publication, examples of this map are likely held in Thai government collections, but we see no such in the public record, nor is there any market history. This is the only known example.