Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Mueang of Isan

Another quote from Volker Grbowskys "Kleine Geschichte Thailands", in the chapter on the history of the Isan.
In dem halben Jahrhundert zwischen 1778 und 1826 stieg die Zahl der müang im Isan von 13 auf 35; für die Erschließung des Landesinneren erwiesen sich vor allem die Gründungen von Ròi Et (1775), Ubon Ratchathani (1791), Kalasin (1793) und Khòn Kaen (1797) als äußerst wichtig.

In the half century between 1778 and 1826 the number of mueang in the Isan increased from 13 to 35; most important for the development of the central area were the founding of Roi Et (1775), Ubon Ratchathani (1791), Kalasin (1793( and Khon Kaen (1797).
Now, I already wrote about the number of mueang in Isan before, quoting an article by the same author in the book "Regions and national integration in Thailand", in which the author gave the numbers for some selected years between 1826 and 1880.
  • 1826 - 33
  • 1840 - 54
  • 1860 - 70
  • 1880 - 100
  • and no new Mueang after 1885
The number for 1826 contradicts with the new quote, but when rechecking the article I noticed that in there the above mentioned numbers for 1778 and 1826 were also given few paragraphs before - so in fact the article already contains both contradicting numbers.

And to my shame I have to admit that I still haven't worked through the scans I received last year, which would have allowed me to confirm which of the two numbers of 1826 is wrong.

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