Krabi is one of the southern provinces (changwat) of Thailand, on the shore of the Andaman Sea. Neighbouring provinces are (from north clockwise) Phang Nga, Surat Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, and Trang. Phuket province lies to the west across Phang Nga Bay. Krabi town is the seat of the provincial government.
The area is dotted with solitary limestone peaks, known as mogotes, both on land and in the sea. Rock climbers from all over travel to Ton Sai Beach and Railay Beach. The beaches form part of Krabi's Phra Nang Peninsula. Of the 154 islands in the province, Ko Phi Phi Le is the most famous, as it was the site of the movie The Beach. Other notable islands include Ko Phi Phi Don, part of the Phi Phi Islands, and Ko Lanta, a larger island to the south. The coast was damaged by the tsunami of 26 December 2004.
Krabi's mogotes contain many caves, most having speleothems such as stalactites and stalagmites. Tham Chao Le and Tham Phi Hua To, both in Ao Luek District, contain prehistoric rock-paintings depicting humans, animals, and geometrical shapes. In Lang Rong Rien cave in 1986 archaeologists found 40,000-year-old human artifacts: stone tools, pottery, and bones. It is one of the oldest traces of human occupation in Southeast Asia. Krabi's caves are one of the main sources of nests of the edible-nest swiftlet, used in the making of bird's nest soup.
Krabi's farmland is dominated by a duopoly of rubber and palm oil plantations. Palm plantations alone occupy 1,568 km2 (605 sq mi) or 52 percent of the province's farmland. Together, palm oil and rubber cover 95 percent of Krabi's cultivated area with many smallholder farms amidst industrial plantations. The total forest area is 915 km2 (353 sq mi) or 17.2 percent of provincial area.
Krabi province ranks fifth in tourism income in Thailand with six million arrivals. Only Bangkok, Phuket, Chonburi, and Chiang Mai earn more from tourism. Arrivals are concentrated from November to April. The crush of high-season visitors has come at considerable cost to the environment. Local authorities have devised a program, "Krabi 365 Days" to move some high-season visitors to the off-season, from May to October, called the "green season" by tourism officials, partly due to the seasonal rains. Tourism revenue has grown at an average of eight percent annually. In 2018, tourism income is expected to hit 100 billion baht, up from 96 billion in 2017. The top visitors are Chinese and Malaysians. Scandinavians number in the top five visiting nationalities. According to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) as of 2018 there are 460 hotels in the province, with some 200 additional hotels in the process of being licensed and another 200 in the preliminary stages of consideration.
