Phuket Mining Museum
The tin-mining century that built Phuket, told in a purpose-built Sino-Portuguese hall at Kathu, where the island's richest mines were worked.
Phuket Mining Museum
Before tourism, Phuket ran on tin. For roughly a century the island's economy, its migration, its architecture and its politics were shaped by the mines, and the district of Kathu was at the centre of it. The Phuket Mining Museum was built there, in a large Sino-Portuguese style hall, to tell that story in one place.
Exhibits move from how the ore was found and washed, through the dredges and hydraulic mining that replaced hand labour, to the Chinese labourers whose arrival reshaped the island's population — and to the Vegetarian Festival and old-town mansions that came out of the money the mines made. Full-size reconstructions and dioramas carry much of it, which makes the process legible without a technical background.
Kathu sits inland between Phuket Town and Patong.
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