Kra

Kra, or KRAO, the isthmus connecting Siam with the Malay Peninsula, whose minimum breadth is 44 miles. Most of the schemes for a ship-canal propose to utilise the estuary of the Pakshan, which separates British from Siamese territory, and penetrates 17 miles inland. A ridge of land 7½ miles wide and 250 feet high is all that then separates the Pakshan from the headwaters of the Chumpon, which flows eastwards to the Gulf of Siam. A canal here would shorten the journey from Ceylon to Hong-Kong by 300 miles, and that from Calcutta to Hong-Kong by 540 miles. A railway across the same narrow belt of land has also been suggested. See Loftus, Journey across the Isthmus of Kra (1883).