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
Provinces of Portugal its beginning, a policy of regionalisation of the country, which was written into the 1933 Constitution, creating new provinces, within an executive body, the "juntas de provincia" () and a deliberative body, the "conselhos provinciais" (). Created in 1936, the new provinces did not correspond to the traditional "comarcas" or "provinícias". The new territories were based on studies made by Amorim Girão, a geographer, who divided continental Portugal into 13 ""regiões naturais"" (). The provinces were: These eleven provinces corresponded each to one of the natural regions developed by Amorim Girão, with two exceptions: the natural regions of Trás-os-Montes and