Map of Southeast Asia, 1575

           In 1575 during the troubles reign of  King Thammaracha at Ayutthaya, the Portuguese map maker Vaz Dourado produced this handsome map on vellum of southeast and east Asia, one part of a complete atlas of the world occupying nearly 20 sheets. Vaz Dourado lived in India and produced a number of luxury atlases that were works of art in their own right. Rather than serving as real travel documents, they were made for rulers and merchants as artistic records of the known world.

         In fact, the localised geographical knowledge in the maps was extremely limited and the map tells us almost nothing about Thailand at that tine. Europeans knew little more than the coastlines of the lands of the world they were beginning to explore, and even the coastal areas were only sketchily known. Interior regions on this map are decoratively painted, with pagodas and a few very general place names, and furnishes with quite imaginary rivers, for lack of any detailed information. The text around the border indicates that the area shown covers Ceylon to Japan.   

          The Portuguese and Spanish were the first great European explorers and sea travellers. The Portuguese in particular settles in many Asian lands, including Siam, and remained as traders and interpreters for many succeeding generations, Portuguese was in fact the main language of communication between Europeans and Asians in Thailand until the beginning of the nineteenth century.