This province is directly north of Phuket and covers an area of 4,170 square kilometers. The provincial capital I 788 kilometers south of Bangkok. ). It is divided into 8 administrative Amphoe (districts), i.e. Amphoe Muang, Amphoe Kuraburi, Amphoe Tubbud, Amphoe Takuapa, Amphoe Takua-Thung, AmphoeTai-Muang and Amphoe Koh-Yao .

History of Phangnga

Ancient records reveal that before establishment of the current dynasty in the late 18th Century, the area called Phang-nga was a district attached to Takuapa, the leading town thereabouts. Then with the beginning of the Rattanakosin Dynasty, during the reign of Rama I, Phang-nga was given equal status with Takuapa and another nearby town, Takuatung, and all three were romoved from the government's Harbour Department and put under the Ministry of Defence.

The best evidecne indicates that Phang-nga was officially established in 1809 during the reign of Rama II, when one of the periodic wars with Burma was raging. The king there, Padung Kasatri, appointed Ah Terng Woon to lead an invasion force for attack on Thailand's southern towns.The ship-borne army carried off the populations of Takuatung, and Thalang (in Phuket). Thalang was razed to the ground.An army under the direction of a royal prince was therefore sent from Bangkok to drive off the attackers.

While the war was raging some of the local people took refuge at a place then called Kra Pu-nga (Malay for river mounth of Pu-nga) protected on all sides by mountains.After the razing of Thalang, it was the government's view that Thailand's hold on the area had weakened, and that a new town should be established in its stead. Thus the citizenry left in the Thalang area was instructed to move to Kra Pu-nga and register themselves as being resident there. There is still a village in what is today Takuatung District called Thalang founded by those immigrants from Phuket. The new city was put under the administration of the government in Nakorn Sri Thammarat.

During the reign of Rama III, the central government thought to strenghen the southwest coastal town that were prey to succesive Burmese attacks by appointing a governor for the province who reported directly to Bangkok. Praya Borriak Puton (Sang Na Nakorn) thereby becaome first governor of Phang-nga in 1840. In the same year, Takuatung was reduced in status and becaome merely a district of Phang-nga.

All during this period tinmining was booming, and as one of the most tin-rich of Thailand's tin bearing locales, Phang-nga attracted increasing attention from the central government because of its importance as a foreign exchange earner. When the worldwide enconomic depression of the 1930s struck. Thailand, Phang-nga's status was further enhanced by incorporation of Takuapa as a distric (1931).