Khorat plateau
The Khorat plateau is a highland in the northeast of Thailand , the Isan , named after the largest city in the area: Nakhon Ratchasima , or Khorat for short.
The mean height is around 200 m above sea level. NN. The plain has an area of more than 155,000 km² with the topography of a saucer sloping to the southeast and divided into two larger drainage basins, the Sakon Nakhon basin and the southern basin. The main rivers are Mae Nam Mun and Mae Nam Chi , both of which flow into the Mekong . The Mekong forms the northern and eastern borders of the plateau, in the west the Phetchabun Mountains close off the area, to the south the Dongrek Mountains form the border with Cambodia . Smaller bodies of water (such as the Mae Nam Songkhram ) flow in the Sakon Nakhon Basin and flow through a gently rolling landscape that benefits from the relatively high amounts of rain that fall here during the rainy season .
Due to the surrounding mountain ranges, the Khorat plateau receives relatively little rainfall from the southwest monsoon. While the central region of Thailand has an average rainfall of 1500 mm per year, it is only 1150 mm in the Khorat plateau. The contrast between the dry and the wet season is much sharper than in the rest of the country, which is why the rice yields are much lower here.
The plateau was already settled in prehistoric times, as numerous traces of human life prove. Archaeological excavations also show that there were many localities and territories that existed before the Dvaravati Empire and that later had friendly relations with Angkor under the Khmer population. The oldest known settlement is Phimai , which is considered to be the center of the ancient forces of the Khorat plateau. The city was probably already in the 3rd millennium BC. Settled in BC and drew its wealth not only from agriculture , but also from salt deposits and iron ore mines . Here also long been a center of was Mahayana - Buddhism that flourished alongside the Khmer Hindu religion.
The settlements were typically surrounded by moats and a dike that provided the necessary irrigation. This can be investigated today in Ban Sema and Ban Prasat, which were settled before the 9th century. In Ban Prasat there are even much older traces that point to rice cultivation more than 3000 years ago.
Today the plateau is considered to be one of the main sites of paleontological interest, such as the dinosaur Siamotyrannus isanensis, one of the ancestors of the Tyrannosaurus rex . Finds can be seen in a museum in Khon Kaen . Eight of the 38 known prehistoric species of the elephant have also been discovered here. An ancient species of orangutan was still found in this area at the beginning of the 21st century .
Coordinates: 15 ° 40 ′ N , 103 ° 10 ′ E