Geography of Thailand political development of this region. International access through the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand made the south a crossroads for both Theravada Buddhism, centered at Nakhon Si Thammarat, and Islam, especially in the former Pattani Kingdom on the border with Malaysia. Thailand's regions are divided politically into a total of 76 provinces plus Bangkok, which is a special administrative area. Thailand's climate is influenced by monsoon winds that have a seasonal character (the southwest and northeast monsoon). The southwest monsoon, which starts from May until October is characterized by movement of warm, moist air from the Indian Ocean
Nine Provinces "Rongcheng Shi" bamboo slips from the Chu state has the earliest interpretation of the Nine Provinces, but these early descriptions differ widely from the currently recognized Nine Provinces. The Nine Provinces, according to the "Rongcheng Shi", are Tu (涂), Jia (夾), Zhang (竞), Ju (莒), Ou (藕), Jing (荊), Yang (陽), Xu (敘), and Cuo (虘). The most prevalent account of the Nine Provinces comes from the "Yu Gong" or "Tribute of Yu" section of the "Book of Xia" (夏書), collected in the "Book of Documents". It was therein recorded that Yu the Great divided the world into the nine