Ko Samui


Ko Samui or Koh Samui, often locally shortened to Samui, is an island off the east coast of Thailand. Geographically in the Chumphon Archipelago, it is part of Surat Thani Province, though as of 2012, Ko Samui was granted municipal status and thus is now locally self-governing. Ko Samui, with an area of, is Thailand's second largest island after Phuket. In 2018, it was visited by 2.7 million tourists.

History

Early Period

According to oral tradition, the island of Ko Samui was first inhabited in about the 6th century, settled by fishermen from the Malay Peninsula and visited by passing traders from southern China. It has also been claimed by some local historians that the island was used as a safe haven during storm seasons. However, recent archaeological evidence suggests that Ko Samui may have been inhabited significantly earlier, more than 2,000 years ago, with bronze ritual drums with etchings of birds, boats, and spirits being found in the southern hills on the island.
Beginning in the thirteenth century, Ko Samui was part of Siam's feudal system and at the time the island acted as a crucial intermediary for ongoing trade between China and India. As a result of its position in Southeast Asia, the island began receiving immigrants from many ethnic and religious groups. At the time, Ko Samui was connected to the muang system through Nakorn Si Thammarat and Thai people constituted the ethnic majority, moving the island to a more agrarian society. These individuals tended to live further inland than previous inhabitants.
Ko Samui appears on Chinese maps dating back to 1687, under the name Pulo Cornam.

Colonial Period

Beginning in the 19th century, a significant number of Chinese immigrants moved to many areas in Thailand, including Ko Samui. Most of these individuals were traders moving from Hainan, who culturally assimilated into the majority Thai society on the island. While much of these individuals' Chinese culture and identity have not been preserved, a number of Hainanese temples and communities still exist on Ko Samui. It was these immigrants who first began cotton and coconut plantations on the island, transporting them to the mainland on boats known as panuk lang si. As a result, these Thai-Chinese individuals tended to live closer to the beaches of Ko Samui, in contrast to the ethnic Thai individuals who lived further inland.
During World War II, Ko Samui was used by Japan as a base of operations in conjunction with Thailand's Navy. It is believed that, as a result of conflicts between the Allies and Japan, the area around the island contains a number of shipwrecks from the era. Locals reported a large explosion around that time, which academic Paul Chambers attributed to a Japanese tanker being bombed alongside Ko Samui on 15 June 1945.
In the 1960s, two dengue hemorrhagic fever epidemics occurred on Ko Samui.

Tourism Period

Until the late 20th century, Ko Samui was an isolated self-sufficient community, having little connection with the mainland of Thailand. The island was without roads until the early 1970s and the journey from one side of the island to the other could involve a whole-day trek through the mountainous central jungles.
At first, tourists were primarily backpackers to whom locals provided basic accommodations. However, as Bangkok, Pattaya, and Phuket started to become major tourist destinations in the 1980s, Ko Samui began to attract significant foreign investment and travelers. The first era of development projects began at Chaweng Beach, followed by a steady outgrowth of resorts across the rest of the island. This period of economic growth was primarily the result of Thailand's Fifth
National Economic and Social Development Plan, which lasted from 1982 until 1986. In 1985, the Tourism Authority of Thailand launched the Master Plan for Tourism Development of Ko Samui/Surat Thani.
In 1989, Samui Airport was constructed, facilitating a spike in mass tourism growth on the island during the 1990s. As a result of the increased income from tourism, Thailand's central government began reorganizing local administrative procedures on the island. Leases and joint ventures also came to replace direct land sales during this period, especially as the devaluation of the Thai baht and political instability in Indonesia led many to view Ko Samui as an affordable and relatively safe alternative destination. DHF outbreaks continued to occur on the island following the 1960 epidemics, with an incidence of nearly 500 cases per 100,000 during one outbreak in 1995, potentially impacting tourism during the period.
Economic growth has brought not only prosperity but also major changes to the island's environment and culture, including "explosive tensions" between rich and poor residents and crime linked to that or otherwise.

Name

The origin of the name samui is unknown. It may come from the Sanskrit-Tamil word สมวย, meaning 'sea weather'. Or it may derive from the name of a tree known locally in southern Thailand as ต้นหมุย. A third possibility is that it originated from early Hainanese traders to Samui. In Hainanese Chinese, เซ่าบ่วย means 'first island', 'barrier', or 'gate', or literally 'beautiful beach'. As it was their first port of call in Thailand, it became its name and evolved to สมุย. Some people believe that the word "samui" derives from the Malay word saboey, or 'safe haven'. There is no firm corroboration of any of these theories. Ko เกาะ is the Thai word for "island".

Government

The first local government on Samui island was established in 1956 with the sanitary district Ko Samui, which however only covered the area around the settlement. In 1963 it was enlarged to cover the entirety of Samui and Pha-Nga islands, which at that time were still in the same district. In 1973, the area of the Ko Pha-Ngan District became a separate sanitary district. Since 1981, the sanitary district covers the area of the whole district.
Like all sanitary districts, Ko Samui became a subdistrict municipality in 1999.
The subdistrict municipality was upgraded to a town municipality in 2008, and to a city municipality in 2012.
The conversion of the municipality into a special administrative area with greater powers of self-governance similar to Pattaya has been discussed since 2008, but as of 2018, no action has been taken.

Administration

Ko Samui is an amphoe of Surat Thani Province, divided into seven sub-districts and 39 administrative villages. The entire island is one city municipality. The district covers the island, as well as the Ang Thong archipelago and some other small islands nearby.
No.NameThaiVillagesPop.
1.Ang Thongอ่างทอง613,043
2.Lipa Noiลิปะน้อย55,432
3.Taling Ngamตลิ่งงาม56,138
4.Na Mueangหน้าเมือง55,339
5.Maretมะเร็ต69,051
6.Bo Phutบ่อผุด619,014
7.Mae Namแม่น้ำ69,248

Originally, the district included all of the islands of Surat Thani Province. The islands Ko Pha-ngan and Ko Tao were split off as the minor district Ko Pha-ngan effective 1 October 1970. In 1980, administrative village number seven of Ang Thong Sub-district covering the islands Ko Chueak, Ko Nok Phao, and Ko Rikan was reassigned to Don Sak District, where it now forms village number 11.

Geography

Ko Samui is in the Gulf of Thailand, about northeast of Surat Thani town. It is the largest island in the Chumphon Archipelago, measuring about at its widest point. To the north are the populated resort islands of Ko Pha-ngan, Ko Tao, and Ko Nang Yuan. Close to Bangrak in northeast Samui is the small uninhabited island of Ko Som, and to the northeast of Chaweng is the tiny Ko Matlang. To the south are Ko Taen and Ko Matsum, each of which have small tourist facilities. To the far west are 44 other islands which together compose Mu Ko Ang Thong National Park which is accessible by a day-trip boat tour from Ko Samui.
The central part of Ko Samui is mostly tropical jungle with tree coverage and wildlife and its largest mountain, Khao Pom, peaking at. The lowland and coastal areas are connected by a -long road, encircling the island. Other concrete roads branch off to service other areas.
The town of Nathon on the west coast is the closest town to the mainland and is the original capital which still houses many government offices. Two of the island's five main piers make Nathon the main port for all transportation from the mainland and the commercial centre for Samui residents. The transition from dependence on the local coconut industry and the continued growth and development of the tourist industry, as well as the northeastern location of the airport, has led to the increase of commercial activity in Chaweng and Bophut.

Climate

Ko Samui has a tropical monsoon climate according to the Köppen climate classification, based on an analysis of 1971–2010 Thai Meteorological Department data. The climate is warm and humid for most of the year. In comparison to Phuket and most of the rest of southern Thailand, Samui's weather is relatively drier. Phuket's wet season is spread over six to eight months. Ko Samui has only two months with more than of rain. The heaviest precipitation typically falls in the time frame from mid October to early December. For the rest of the year, given the tropical climate, rain showers are brief; 20–60 minutes duration is typical.

Nature

The jungles of Ko Samui are home to a number of notable waterfalls, including the Na Muang Waterfalls, the Hin Lad Waterfall, the Khun Si Waterfall, the Wang Sao Thong Waterfall, the Tang Rua Waterfall, the Tar Nim Waterfall, and the Lat Wanorn Waterfall. Many of these waterfalls are especially popular tourist destinations, despite a number of visitors experiencing severe injuries or death due to slips or falls around these areas.
A number of fruit trees grow on the island, including langsat, durian, mamud, and mamuang thaai tor.
Several mammal species have been noted on the island, including the peninsular shrew, the crab-eating macaque, the common treeshrew, the small flying fox, the lesser short-nosed fruit bat, the cave nectar bat, the long-tongued nectar bat, the Black giant squirrel, the grey-bellied squirrel, the black rat, the Sikkim rat, the ricefield rat, the Polynesian rat, the brown rat, the white-bellied rat, the red spiny rat, and the Asian palm civet. Stray dogs are common on Ko Samui, with tens of thousands being reported; before 1999, no organizations dedicated to spaying or neutering dogs were established, leading to the dog population of the island growing unchecked. Macaques are forced by some farmers on the island to harvest coconuts, often under threat of violence. Many elephant sanctuaries exist on Ko Samui, but there are no standards for what constitutes a sanctuary in Thailand and unethical and unsafe practices such as elephant riding still occur. In one case in 2016, a British tourist was killed after being thrown from an elephant after its handler hit the animal several times.
Amphibian species include the frogs Limnonectes blythii, Limnonectes doriae, Limnonectes pseudodoriae, Polypedates leucomystax, Microhyla ornata and Sylvirana nigrovittata and the caecilian Ichthyophis supachaii. Reptile species include the rock geckoes Cnemaspis samui and Cnemaspis siamensis, the frilly geckoes Cosymbotus craspedotus and Hemidactylus platyurus, the Malayan forest gecko Cyrtodactylus pulchellus, the common four-clawed gecko Gehyra mutilata, the Indo-Pacific gecko Hemidactylus garnotii, the Asian slender gecko Hemiphyllodactylus yunnanensis, the garden lizards Calotes emma and Calotes versicolor, the spotted flying dragon Draco maculatus, the skinks Dasia olivacea, Eutropis multifasciata, and Subdoluseps bowringii, and the snakes Ahaetulla prasina, Argyrophis diardii, Boiga cynodon, Cylindrophis ruffus, Homalopsis buccata, Python reticulatus, and Xenopeltis unicolor.
Mosquito species Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti were the vectors for two epidemics of dengue hemorrhagic fever on Ko Samui in 1966 and 1967.
Sea life around Ko Samui is diverse, including many species such as reef squid, sand whiting, flying fish, whale sharks, and box jellyfish. It has been noted that the highest incidence of jellyfish-related deaths in Thailand have occurred on Ko Samui and Ko Pha-ngan, with six of the seven cases of box jellyfish-related deaths from 1999 to 2015 occurring on those two islands.