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Cheow Lan Lake

Manmade lake in Thailand

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ13024929
Source-derived summary

Cheow Lan Lake (Thai: เชี่ยวหลาน, RTGS: Chiao Lan) or Rajjaprabha Dam Reservoir (อ่างเก็บน้ำเขื่อนรัชชประภา, RTGS: Ratchaprapha~), is located in Khao Sok National Park in Surat Thani Province, Thailand. It is an 185-square-kilometre (71 sq mi) artificial lake, inaugurated in 1987 with the construction of Rajjaprabha Dam by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) as a source of electricity.

Cheow Lan Lake (Thai: เชี่ยวหลาน, RTGS: Chiao Lan) is fully man made by the Thailand government for the making of the Ratchaprapha (Rajjaprabha) Dam. The lake was a ancient tropical rainforest.

The Submerged Villages: The schools, homes, and temples of the original villages are still sitting perfectly preserved at the very bottom of the lake, under up to 90 meters (300 feet) of water.

Rajjaprabha Dam

Rajjaprabha Dam, meaning 'light of the kingdom', got its name in May 1987 from the king at the opening ceremony on the king's 60th birthday. Before that day it was called the "Cheow Lan Project". It was designed as a multi-purpose project for power generation, flood control, irrigation, and fishery. In 1982, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) started construction of the dam by diverting the Klong Saeng River. It took about one year to completely flood the 185 square kilometres (71 sq mi) basin.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Cheow Lan Lake” as manmade lake in Thailand. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cheow, Lake and Manmade.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1987, 1982—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Cheow, Lake and Manmade providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Cheow Lan Lake”, the useful work is to connect “manmade lake in Thailand” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q13024929. Authority coordinates are 9.000, 98.767. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1987 and 1982.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Cheow Lan Lake”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Cheow Lan Lake primary sources, Cheow Lan Lake archive and Cheow research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cheow Lan Lake”?
  2. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Cheow Lan Lake” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.