The people

Official Phuket records reflect a local population of around 300.000 inhabitants. The two main population centers are at opposite sides of the island. On the east coast is Phuket Town, te capital, and on the west coast is Patong Beach, Phuket’s center of tourism.

The residents of Phuket are Thais ad Chinese, who migrated from the mainland to work in tin mines, Muslims of Malaysian extraction who came to work in the rubber plantations and the Chao Ley or “sea gypsies”, one of the earliest group to inhabit Phuket.

The Chinese represent around 35% of the island’s population. They differ from those who settled in Bangkok and other regions of Thailand as they arrived mainly from the Hokkien region of China as did those now living in Singapore and Malaysia. As elsewhere in Asia, many of Chinese have now become fully integrated into Thai society and many of them own businesses both large and small. Collectively they are responsible for a large part of the trade volume on Phuket and their influence is visible in many places such as the Chinese temples on Phuket or the annual Chinese Vegetarian Festival in October, one of most important tourist attractions of Phuket Island.

The influence of the Indonesian and Malayan culture is also apparent in the ethnic makeup, language, art and religion of southern Thailand. About one third of the Thais living on Phuket are Muslims. Concentrated mostly around Surin and a few other big villages, they work as rice and rubber farmers.