Thaton
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Thaton is a town in Mon State, in southern Myanmar on the Tenasserim plains.
History
Thaton was a center for a Mon kingdom which stretched from the Ayeyarwady delta region to as far east as Cambodia. This kingdom was called Suvannabhumi ("The Golden Land"), and it was to this kingdom that King Ashoka of India sent Buddhist missionaries in the 3rd century BC. Later, under the kingdom of Dvaravati, Thaton was an important seaport on the Gulf of Martaban, for trade with India and Sri Lanka. Shin Aran named Dhammadassi, a monk from Thaton, who was born in Thaton and bought up and educated in Nakhorn Pathom, an old capital of Mon kingdom of Dvaravadi,now in Thailand, took Theravada Buddhism north to the Burmese kingdom of Bagan. In 1057, King Anawrahta of Bagan conquered Thaton.
Geography
Silting has resulted in the coastline moving 16 km away from Thaton, which is now a sleepy town on the rail line from Bago to Mottama.
External link
There is also a Thaton in Northern Thailand, in the province of Chiang Mai near Fang and Mae AiTemplate:Myanmar-geo-stub