1850 Perrot Map of Indo-Chine - Geographicus - Indochine-perrot-1825

The Tenasserim Hills or Tenasserim Range ( my, တနင်္သာရီ တောင်တန်း, ; th, ทิวเขาตะนาวศรี, , ; ms, Banjaran Tanah Seri/Banjaran Tenang Sari) is the geographical name of a roughly 1,700 km long mountain chain, part of the Indo-Malayan mountain system in Southeast Asia. Despite their relatively scant altitude these mountains form an effective barrier between Thailand and

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

in their northern and central region. There are only two main transnational roads and cross-border points between Kanchanaburi and

Tak Tak or TAK may refer to: Places * Dağdöşü or Tak, Azerbaijan, a village * Taq, Iran or Tak, a village * Tak province, Thailand ** Tak, Thailand, capital of the province Entertainment *'' Total Annihilation: Kingdoms'' or ''TA:K'' * Tak, ...

, at the Three Pagodas Pass and at Mae Sot. The latter is located beyond the northern end of the range, where the Tenasserim Hills meet the Dawna Range. Minor cross-border points are

Sing Khon Singkhon Pass ( th, ด่านสิงขร), also referred to as Sing Khon and as Maw Daung after the name of the Burmese town west of the border, is a pass across the Tenasserim Hills on the border between Thailand and Myanmar, at an eleva ...

, near Prachuap Khiri Khan, as well as

Bong Ti Bong Ti ( th, บ้องตี้, ) is a village and ''tambon'' (subdistrict) of Sai Yok District, in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand.Thaita ...

and Phu Nam Ron west of Kanchanaburi. The latter is expected to gain in importance if the planned

Dawei Port Project The Dawei deep-sea port and special economic zone is an infrastructure project in Burma. Construction started, but was suspended in 2013. Plans to resume construction were announced in August 2015. It is in Dawei, the capital of the Tanintharyi R ...

goes ahead, along with a highway and a railway line between Bangkok and that harbor. The southern section of this extensive chain of mountains runs along the Kra Isthmus into the

Malay peninsula The Malay Peninsula (Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area ...

almost reaching Singapore. Many rivers have their source in these mountains, but none of them are very long.

Etymology

This mountain chain is named after the Tenasserim Region ''(Tanintharyi)'' in Burma and its name in Thai is ''Thio Khao Tanaosi'', also spelt as ''Tanawsri'', ''Tanao Sri'', ''Tanaw Sri'' or in

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

as ''Tanah Seri''. All those names are corrupted form of the original

Tanah Seri, which means glowing land.

Geography

The Tenasserim Hills are part of a long granite mountain ridge that is older than the Himalayas. Further south from the 16th parallel, the Shan Hills break up into narrow steep-sided ranges, the Dawna Range in the west and, parallel to it at the southern end, the peninsular Tenasserim Mountains that extend southwards along the Kra Isthmus. Eastwards, in Kanchanaburi Province on the Thai side, the mountain range is crossed by the Khwae Yai River and the Khwae Noi River. In this area small hill ridges alternate with narrow valleys that are often only about 2 km wide and further east there are only isolated hills, where the range ends in the Central Plain of Thailand. Further south the Phachi, the Pranburi and the Phetchaburi River flow eastwards from the range towards the

Gulf of Siam The Gulf of Thailand, also known as the Gulf of Siam, is a shallow inlet in the southwestern South China Sea, bounded between the southwestern shores of the Indochinese Peninsula and the northern half of the Malay Peninsula. It is around in le ...

. The westernmost range is separated from the Tenasserim coast by the Three Pagodas Fault. West of it lie the Dawna Range, the Karen Hills and the valleys of the Salween and the

Gyaing Gyaing River
Myanmar's net is a river of

Ye, Heinze, Dawei (Tavoy), Great Tenasserim (Tanintharyi) and the Lenya rivers are relatively short and flow into the

Andaman Sea The Andaman Sea (historically also known as the Burma Sea) is a marginal sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean bounded by the coastlines of Myanmar and Thailand along the Gulf of Martaban and west side of the Malay Peninsula, and separated from ...

. Further south the

Kraburi River The Kraburi River ( th, แม่น้ำกระบุรี, , ; my, မြစ်ကြီးနား, BGN/PCGN: myitkyina, ''Kyan River''), also Kra ( th, กระ) or Pak Chan River ( th, แม่น้ำปากจั่น) is the ...

forms the southern border between Thailand and Burma.

Sections

*Northern: The northern end of the range overlaps with the Dawna Range and is not clearly defined. Some geographic works set the Three Pagodas Pass as the northern limit. The Tenghyo Range is a small northern prolongation following the

coast. The highest points in the northern section of the range are in the Bilauktaung subrange in Myanmar, where 2,072 m high Myinmoletkat Taung is the highest point of the northern section of the Tenasserim range, and with a prominence of 1,857 m one of the ultra prominent peaks of Southeast Asia as well. Other noteworthy peaks are Ngayannik Yuak Taung 1,531 m and Palan Taung 1,455 m. The average elevations of the Tenasserim Hills are higher on the Burmese side, with many mountain peaks reaching 1,000 m, while on the Thai side the highest summits remain around 600 m save few exceptions. *Central: The southernmost extension of the Bilauktaung reaches the northern end of the Kra Isthmus. Further south the 1,835 m high

Khao Luang Khao Luang (เขาหลวง) is the tallest mountain in southern Thailand. It is in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province. Geography The Khao Luang mountain is the highest summit of a massif of several hills with steep slopes. It is part of the Nakh ...

(เขาหลวง), located in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, is the tallest mountain in Southern Thailand. In this area the wider range is divided into separate ridges with gaps between them. Some recent geographical works refer to the sections of the Tenasserim Hills in the isthmus as the " Phuket Range" and the " Nakhon Si Thammarat Range". These names are not found, however, in classical geographic sources. *Southern: The Titiwangsa,

Bintang Bintang Beer ( id, Bir Bintang, literally "Star Beer") is a brand of beer from Indonesia and is produced by PT Multi Bintang Indonesia Tbk, part of Heineken. The beer is styled as a pale lager, gold in colour with an ideal serving temperature of ...

Tahan Tahhan or alternative Tahan (in Arabic طحان) is a surname and may refer to: * Bassam Tahhan, Syrian-born French professor of Arabic literature and expert on the Quran *Hussein al-Tahan or al-Tahhan (born 1955), the governor of Baghdad, Iraq fro ...

and

Pantai Timur Range The Pantai Timur Range (Malay: ''Banjaran Pantai Timur''; Jawi: بنجارن ڤنتاي تيمور), also known as the Terengganu Highlands (Malay: ''Tanah Tinggi Terengganu''; Jawi: تانه تيڠڬي ترڠڬانو), is a mountain range situ ...

s form the southern section of the mountain system. The northern part is known as the Sankalakhiri Range, formed by the smaller Pattani, Songkhla and Taluban subranges. The main range runs approximately in a northwest–southeast orientation across the border into Peninsular Malaysia, and forms the backbone of the peninsula, separating the west and east coast regions. The main stretch of the Titiwangsa Mountains cover the states of Kelantan, Pahang,

Perak Perak () is a state of Malaysia on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. Perak has land borders with the Malaysian states of Kedah to the north, Penang to the northwest, Kelantan and Pahang to the east, and Selangor to the south. Thailand's ...

, Selangor and

Negeri Sembilan Negeri Sembilan (, Negeri Sembilan Malay: ''Nogoghi Sombilan'', ''Nismilan'') is a state in Malaysia which lies on the western coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It borders Selangor on the north, Pahang in the east, and Malacca and Johor to the s ...

. Foothills extend further southeastwards into Johor, where 1,276 m high Mount Ophir is located. The 2,187 m high Mount Tahan of the Tahan Range and the 2,183 m high Mount Korbu are the highest summits of this stretch and of the whole Tenasserim Range.

Ecology

Great extensions of these hills are covered with dense tropical moist forests. Usually the western slopes are more densely forested than the eastern for they receive more abundant monsoon rains. The range is home to several distinct ecoregions. The Dawna and other northern ranges are in the Kayah-Karen montane rain forests ecoregion. The Tenasserim-South Thailand semi-evergreen rain forests cover the Bilauktaung range and the Isthmus of Kra, and extend to the coast on both sides of the isthmus. The Kayah-Karen montane rain forests and Tenasserim-South Thailand semi-evergreen forests together form the Kayah-Karen/Tenasserim moist forests ecoregion which is included in the Global 200 list of ecoregions identified by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as priorities for conservation. The Kangar-Pattani floristic boundary runs across the peninsula in southern Thailand and northernmost Malaysia, marking the boundary between the large biogeographic regions of Indochina to the north and

Sundaland Sundaland (also called Sundaica or the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of South-eastern Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It ...

and Malesia to the south. The forests north of the boundary are characterized by seasonally-deciduous trees, while the Sundaland forests have more year-round rainfall and the trees are mostly evergreen. The ranges in Peninsular Malaysia are part of the

Peninsular Malaysian montane rain forests The Peninsular Malaysian montane rain forests is an ecoregion on Malay Peninsula. It occupies the mountainous spine of the peninsula in Malaysia and southernmost Thailand. It is in the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome. G ...

ecoregion. The Tenasserim Hills form the habitat for a number of endangered species, including the

Gurney's pitta Gurney's pitta (''Hydrornis gurneyi'') ( th, นกแต้วแร้วท้องดำ) is a medium-sized passerine bird. It breeds in the Malay Peninsula, with populations mainly in Myanmar. The common name and Latin binomial commemorate ...

, endemic to Thailand and Burma, as well as the Asian elephant and tiger. The Sumatran rhinoceros has been reported in the northern section of the wider range. There are records from the north of Tenasserim proper, where there were numerous reports in 1962, to Kota Tinggi in the south where a rhino was captured in 1994. The

Endau-Rompin National Park Endau-Rompin National Park (Malay: ''Taman Negara Endau-Rompin'') is a protected tropical rainforest in the southernmost prolongation of the Tenasserim Hills, Malaysia. It is south of the state of Pahang and northeast of Johor covering an are ...

in Malaysia has the largest remaining Sumatran rhinoceros population in the range. Other species include the

sambar deer The sambar (''Rusa unicolor'') is a large deer native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia that is listed as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List since 2008. Populations have declined substantially due to severe hunting, local ins ...

, barking deer, serow, red goral,

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...

, Kitti's hog-nosed bat, the

Tenasserim white-bellied rat The Tenasserim white-bellied rat (''Niviventer tenaster'') is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is named after the Tenasserim Hills and is found above 1,000 m in forested limestone mountainous areas. Its distribution includes India, M ...

and the

Tenasserim lutung The Tenasserim lutung (''Trachypithecus barbei'') is a species of lutung. It is found in Myanmar and Thailand. It is named after the Tenasserim Hills The Tenasserim Hills or Tenasserim Range ( my, တနင်္သာရီ တေ� ...

, as well as a number of bird species and the

Tenasserim Mountain bent-toed gecko The Tenasserim Mountain bent-toed gecko (''Cyrtodactylus payarhtanensis'') is a species of gecko that is endemic to the Tenasserim Hills in Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventio ...

. Among the fishes in the streams and rivulets of the range the

emperor loach ''Botia udomritthiruji'' (emperor loach) is a small freshwater fish in the loach family Botiidae native to the Great Tenasserim (Tanintharyi) River Basin in south Burma. It reaches in length, and the female's abdomen plumper than the abdomen o ...

and the

Tenasserim garra ''Garra notata'', the Tenasserim garra, is a species of ray-finned fish in the genus '' Garra''. This species is also known as ''Tenasserim garra'', after the Tenasserim Hills. It lives between 120 m and 1500 m in rocky mountain streams, rapid ...

deserve mention. The

Tanintharyi National Park Tanintharyi National Park is a proposed national park in Myanmar's Tanintharyi Region that was supposed to cover an area of of mangrove and evergreen forests at an elevation from sea level to . It was proposed in 2002. Wildlife species in this ar ...

and the

Tanintharyi Nature Reserve Tanintharyi Nature Reserve is a strict nature reserve in Myanmar's Tenasserim Hills, covering . In elevation, it ranges from at an elevation of . Most of the tropical rain forest is evergreen, interspersed with some grassland. The reserve provides ...

were established in 2005, and the

Lenya National Park Lenya National Park is a proposed national park in Myanmar. It has been proposed since 2002 to be established in the Tenasserim Hills over an area of and extended by in 2004. The area comprises evergreen forest at elevations from , which is gov ...

was proposed in 2002 and 2004, on the Burmese side in order to implement habitat conservation, but illegal logging driven by greed and corruption is an ongoing problem on both sides of the border. On the Thai side the Kaeng Krachan National Park was demarcated already in 1981, covering parts of the districts of Nong Ya Plong,

Kaeng Krachan Kaeng Krachan may refer to the following places in Phetchaburi Province, Thailand: * Kaeng Krachan District * Kaeng Krachan Dam * Kaeng Krachan National Park * Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex ( th, กลุ่มป่ ...

and Tha Yang of Phetchaburi Province, and of Hua Hin of Prachuap Khiri Khan Province. The Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park is located in the Khao Sam Roi Yot limestone mountains, a coastal offshoot of the main Tenasserim range and

Nam Tok Huay Yang National Park Nam, Nam, or The Nam are shortened terms for: * Vietnam, which is also spelled ''Viet Nam'' * The Vietnam War Nam, The Nam or NAM may also refer to: Arts and media * Nam, a fictional character in anime series ''Dragon Ball'' * ''NAM'' (video ...

is another park in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province that is located on the Thai side by the border area between 100 and 1200 metres above sea level. In Malaysia the main protected areas in the range area are

Gunung Ledang National Park The Mount Ledang National Park ( ms, Taman Negara Gunung Ledang) is a national park located in the Tangkak District, Malaysia. It contains the 1,276 m peak of Mount Ledang and was established in 2005, and now it is one of the most famous hiking go ...

, Taman Negara and Selangor State Park. The killing of wild

elephants Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae and ...

is a big problem at Kaeng Krachan National Park, with the authorities being unable to control the poachers. Some park officials are allegedly involved in the trade of elephant parts.

History

This range forms a natural border between Burma and Thailand, but it was crossed in 1759 by Burmese troops led by Alaungpaya and his son Hsinbyushin during the Burmese–Siamese War (1759–1760). The Burmese battle plan was to go around the heavily defended Siamese positions along shorter, more direct invasion routes. The invasion force overran relatively thin Siamese defenses in the coast, crossed the Tenasserim Hills to the shore of the

, and turned north towards Ayutthaya. In January 1942, at the beginning of the

Japanese conquest of Burma The Japanese invasion of Burma was the opening phase of the Burma campaign in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II, which took place over four years from 1942 to 1945. During the first year of the campaign (December 1941 to mid-1942) ...

, the main body of the Japanese 33d Division began the main attack towards

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

westward from Thailand across the

Kawkareik Kawkareik (; my, ကော့ကရိတ်, ; ksw, ဒူဖျၢ်ယၢ်ဝ့ၢ်ဖိ) also spelled as Kawkarike, is a town in Karen State, Myanmar. It is the capital of Kawkaraik District and Kawkaraik Township. History The Ka ...

Pass in the Tenasserim Range. A road was cut across the mountains by Japanese military engineers, but many infantry units crossed the range on foot in an arduous march through the forests and cliffs. This road was impracticable during the rainy season, when mud and rivulets made advance difficult for the Japanese Infantry and

leech Leeches are segmented parasitic or predatory worms that comprise the subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the oligochaetes, which include the earthworm, and like them have soft, muscular segmented bodie ...

es abounded. Between 1942 and 1943, during the construction of the Burma Railway between Bangkok and Yangon, Hellfire Pass in the Tenasserim Range was a particularly difficult section of the line to build. It was the largest rock cutting on the railway, also known as the "Death Railway", coupled with its general remoteness and the lack of proper construction tools during building. The Australian, British, Dutch, other allied prisoners of war, along with Chinese,

and Tamil labourers, were required by the Japanese to complete the cutting of the stretch. 69 men were beaten to death by Japanese and Korean guards in the six weeks it took to build the railway pass, and many more died from

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

, dysentery,

starvation Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, dea ...

, and exhaustion (Wigmore 568). On 19 July 2011, a Royal Thai Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed in these mountains, killing 9. The chopper had been sent out to recover five bodies of victims of another helicopter crash involving a

Bell UH-1 Iroquois The Bell UH-1 Iroquois (nicknamed "Huey") is a utility military helicopter designed and produced by the American aerospace company Bell Helicopter. It is the first member of the prolific Huey family, as well as the first turbine-powered helic ...

, that had occurred two days earlier while looking for illegal loggers in Kaeng Krachan National Park near the Burmese border west of Phetchaburi. The Black Hawk helicopter crashed near 978 m high

Yage Taung Yage Taung is a mountain of the Tenasserim Hills, Burma. This mountain rises within the Tanintharyi National Park which is coterminous with the Kaeng Krachan National Park zone over the border with Thailand. Geography Yage Taung is located in a ...

mountain in the Tanintharyi National Park zone in Burma, close to the border with Thailand. A third helicopter, a

Bell 212 The Bell 212 (also known as the ''Twin Two-Twelve'') is a two-blade, medium helicopter that first flew in 1968. Originally manufactured by Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, production was moved to Mirabel, Quebec, Canada in ...

, also crashed in the same area on Sunday, 25 July a few miles further east close to the Kaeng Krachan Reservoir. Superstitious people blamed the three consecutive crashes on the fact that, according to Thai folklore, the densely forested mountains of the Tenasserim Range have strong guardian spirits.Bangkok Post - Superstitions haunt forest
/ref>

References

External links

Geography of ThailandGoogle Books, ''The Physical Geography of Southeast Asia''Emperor Botia (Botia udomritthiruji)The Geology of Burma (Myanmar)Background on troops’ location of Government army in Mon State and Tenasserim Region
{{Mountain ranges of Thailand Mountain ranges of Malaysia Mountain ranges of Myanmar Mountain ranges of Thailand Malay Peninsula Peninsular Malaysia Southern Thailand Tanintharyi Region

Etymology

Geography

Sections

Ecology

History

See also

References

External links