CHANTABUN, or CITANTABURI  , the principal town of the Siamese province of the same name, on the E. side of the Gulf of Siam, in 102° 6' E., 12° 38' N . Pop. about 5000 . The town lies about 12 M. from the sea on a river which is navigable for boats and inside the bar of which there is good anchorage for light-draft vessels . The trade is chiefly in rubies and sapphires from the mines of the Krat and Pailin districts, and in pepper, of which about 500 tons are exported annually . Cardamoms and rosewood are also exported . In 1905 Chantabun was made the headquarters of a high commissioner with jurisdiction ex-tending over the coast districts from the Nam Wen on the East to Cape Liant on the West, which were thus united to form a provincial division (Manton) . In 1893 Chantabun was occupied by a French force of four hundred men, a step taken by France as a guarantee for the execution by Siam of undertakings entered into by the treaty of that year . The occupation, which was merely military and did not affect the civil government, lasted until January 1905, when, in accordance with the provisions of the Franco-Siamese treaty of 1904, the garrison of occupation was withdrawn . Chantabun has been since the 17th century, and still is, a stronghold of the Roman Catholic missionaries, and the Christian element amongst the population is greater here than anywhere else in Siam .