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Samut Prakan History, Thailand

Samut Prakan is situated at Chao Phraya River’s mouth towards Gulf of Thailand. This province is referred to as Pak Nam also, which means the “mouth of a river” in Thai. The province part that lies towards the west of the river consists of prawn and rice fields mostly along with the mangrove forest. The province towards the eastern side of the river is basically commercial as it has a lot of industrial factories. It is the part of the Bangkok metropolis.

Samut Prakan, history

Samut Prakan was believed to be built in the centre of a river in the year 1620- 1628 in Ayuttaya era. Originally, the site for the city was supposed to be on the western side of river where the Phra Pradaeng stands today. It was basically a seaport for the foreign merchandise ships which help their trades with Thailand. In the latter part of the 18th century, when the capital got shifted to Bangkok, there arose a need to then fortify the possible approach from the sea. So, King Rama I got the Wittayakom Fort firmly erected by the left river bank.

Later, King Rama II felt that there was further need to strengthen the town moats, forts and the town walls, many of which were built during Ayuttaya period. It was the increasing conflicts with the Vietnam that made this task an emergency and hence, the king commanded to get the Samut Prakan to be relocated across the Pak Nam’s river so that it could be aptly guarded against the plausible sea attacks. The gun batteries too were built on all river sides and on the little mud island.

For many years, Pak Nam was merely a little fishing village. However, as it was close to the river, it soon developed as many ships began to trade from there. Since then basically, the development of the small village Pak Nam or Samut Prakan started as the shipper shad to unload their goods at the village and had to get their proceedings done with the custom officers here.

Developments

The telegraph came to be used in Samut Prakan in the year 1875 when the area was under the rule of the King Rama V. The entire cable’s distance was about 445 kilometers and was extended further for reaching the Pu Rai Peninsula that included the submarine cables connecting the River Delta’s lighthouse. This was basically for reporting the shipping traffic in the river.

After telegraph, telephone came in the year 1891 and the railways in 1893. With such rapid development, Samut Prakan lifted from the status of being merely a little fishing village to the great place it is today.

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