Ko Samui
Located off the southeast coast of Thailand, Ko Samui is the second largest island in the Kingdom. It is part of the province of Surat Thani, and an archipelago of 85 islets, 6 of which are inhabited. With an area of ​​228.7 square kilometers, it's roughly half the size of Phuket but just as popular, regularly visited by around 2.7 million tourists a year.
Nicknamed the "Pearl of the China Sea", the island only experienced fairly late development. It was probably uninhabited until the sixth century and then colonized by fishermen from Malaysia and southern China. She appears on Chinese maps of 1687 under the name of Pulo Cornam.
Samui's current name remains a mystery. It may have come from the name of one of the local trees, mui, or from the Chinese word saboei, which means "safe harbor". Ko is a Thai word meaning "island". Until the end of the twentieth century, Ko Samui was a self-sufficient and isolated fishing community that made little contact with Thailand. It only had dirt roads until the end of the 1980s and the arrival of the first tourists, and the crossing of the 15 km of the island required a day of walking through the jungle of the mountains.
Ko Samui's current economy is based primarily on a very popular tourism industry as well as the local coconut and rubber trade.
Ko Samui is largely immune from project failures due to its strong tourism-based economy and robust harvests of coconuts and rubber trees. Even when the business sector slows down in Thailand, it does not prevent countries all over the world as well as comfortable Thais from vacationing in the beautiful paradise islands of Thailand.
The steady increase in year-over-year “COVID-free” tourism has spurred the growth of luxury resorts, bungalows and private villas on the island.
The island is conveniently served with more than 50 flights per day on average.
With nearly 3 million visitors coming to Ko Samui each year, the island still has a very bright future ahead of it.
Samui has basically two seasons: tropical hot most of the year, with a brief rainy season. Unlike Phuket and most of southern Thailand, which has a six-month wet season between May and November, the island's climate is relatively dry throughout the year, with a rainy season in November and December. The rest of the year, the showers last short time.
