Cheow Lan Lake
Manmade lake in Thailand

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.
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.
Why this record matters
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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.
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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.