Chiang Saen Aerial Photomosaic

This page discusses a World War II aerial photo taken by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and provided on-line by the Geo-spatial Digital Archive Project (GDAP)¹ in its Williams-Hunt Aerial Photograph Digital Collection.^{2 3}

“Chiang Saen”⁴ is penciled-in on an aerial photo of Mae Chan with a penciled-in circle implying the location of Chiang Saen:⁵

There is a problem, however — the photo does not ‘scale out’. The distance between Mae Chan which is clearly visible in the photo and the circle measure only about 3.2 km:⁶

In actuality, the distance between the two towns is about 28 km:⁷

In addition, there is a peculiarity about the two towns in that their shapes as viewed from the air are generally similar. In the photos below, the scale and true north are the same; hence, while similar, there are discernable differences between the two towns:⁸

But primarily, the presence of the Mekong River to the right (east), which forms part of the old defense line for Chiang Saen, clearly differentiates the two; and it is this which strongly implies that the aerial photo is of Mae Chan and the penciled-in information is in error.

GDAP, the source of these photos, has asked that the following information be included regarding the aerial imagery shown above:

• Williams-Hunt Aerial Photos Collection
• Original from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
• Digital Data from Center for Southeast Asia Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University
• Digital Archive from Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy (CRMA), Thailand

Last Updated on 8 January 2026

1. webpage, at link <http://gdap.crma.ac.th/> is no longer available[↩]
2. webpage, at link <http://gdap.crma.ac.th/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=3> is no longer available[↩]
3. The collection and its origin are described in detail in:

   ● Lertlum, PhD, Col Surat, and Dr Elizabeth Moore, Williams-Hunt Aerial Photograph Collection, (undated); available as here linked.
   ● Moore, Elizabeth, The Williams-Hunt Collection, Sari – International Journal of the Malay World and Civilisation, 27(2)(2009), pp 265-284.
   ● Periasamy, Makeswary, “A View from the Top“,  biblioasia, 5(1) (Apr 2009), pp 38-42.[↩]

4. N20°16.58 E100°05.22 Source: Google Earth fix on apparent center of town.[↩]
5. 02509.jpg; my ref: \02370 Other locations\02370 Chiang Saen\WH aerials\02509.jpg[↩]
6. Extract from 02509.jpg. Annotations are by author using Microsoft Publisher; my ref: \02370 Other locations\02370 Chiang Saen\WH aerials\Apparent location Chiang Saen-red.jpg.[↩]
7. “Terrain” map from  Nations Online Project: Searchable Map and Satellite View of Thailand using Google Earth Data; function no longer available. Annotation (red & blue colored items) placed with Microsoft Publisher by author; my ref: \02370 Other locations\02370 Chiang Saen\WH aerials\Mae Chan-Chiang Saen Lctn map.jpg.[↩]
8. Both images from Google Earth, with annotations added by author using Microsoft Publisher. My ref: \02370 Other locations\02370 Chiang Saen\WH aerials\Shape compare Mae Chan-Chiang Saen-red.jpg[↩]