The Kra Canal

Abstract

From the solid body of Asia a narrow peninsula runs south, ending in the island of Singapore and separating the Andaman Sea from the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea. In its northern end Burma and Thailand share the peninsula, Thailand at the eastern side. Then for a stretch the peninsula from coast to coast is Thai territory, before it widens out to become Malaysia. Near the northern limit of the all-Thai part of the peninsula it is relatively narrow and known as the Kra Isthmus.

The substance of this paper was first prepared in 1963 but for various reasons was not then published. However, in March 1965 an abbreviated version formed part of a lecture delivered at the Norges Handelsheyskole (Institute for Shipping Research), Bergen, in 1965, ‘Shipping in the 1960s’. Some of the text of the abbreviated version has been used instead of original text, but otherwise part II of this paper is the original text subject only to editing changes and the replacement of one long set of calculations and explanations by a single explanatory paragraph. Parts I and III are mainly new and are the exception to the general policy in this publication of not attempting to up-date or explain early papers.