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Chantabun

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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or Chantabztri, the principal town of the Siamese province of the same name, on the E. side of the Gulf of Siam, in 102° 6' E., 12° 38' N. Pop. about 5000. The town lies about 12 m. from the sea on a river which is navigable for boats and inside the bar of which there is good anchorage for light-draft vessels. The trade is chiefly in rubies and sapphires from the mines of the Krat and Pailin districts, and in pepper, of which about 500 tons are exported annually. Cardamoms and rosewood are also exported. In 1905 Chantabun was made the headquarters of a high commissioner with jurisdiction extending over the coast districts from the Nam Wen on the East to Cape Liant on the West, which were thus united to form a provincial division (Monton). In 1893 Chantabun was occupied by a French force of four hundred men, a step taken by France as a guarantee for the execution by Siam of undertakings entered into by the treaty of that year. The occupation, which was merely military and did not affect the civil government, lasted until January 1905, when, in accordance with the provisions of the Franco-Siamese treaty of 1904, the garrison of occupation was withdrawn. Chantabun has been since the 17th century, and still is, a stronghold of the Roman Catholic missionaries, and the Christian element amongst the population is greater here than anywhere else in Siam.