Tenasserim

Tenasserim stands on the Great Tenasserim River upstream from Mergui. The town was an important centre on the western side of the Malay Peninsula, where river travel gave access to routes across the mountains towards Siam. Under Ayutthaya, merchants arriving at Mergui could travel inland through Tenasserim and cross towards the Gulf of Siam. Its position made it a meeting place of maritime and overland trade.

Burmese and Siamese rulers contested the coast for centuries. In the seventeenth century Tenasserim and Mergui were linked to the commerce of Ayutthaya, drawing merchants from across the Indian Ocean. The Burmese Konbaung kingdom later gained control of the region. After the First Anglo-Burmese War, the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826 ceded the Tenasserim provinces to Britain, changing the authority over the old river port and its routes across the peninsula.