Phuket has a population of 200,000. The main centers of population are on opposite sides of the island. Phuket Town, with a population of about 63,000, is located on the east side and Patong Beach, whose population varies widely depending on the time of year. Patong Beach is located on the west side of the Island.

The residents of Phuket are Thais who migrated from the mainland. They consisit of the Chinese who arrived to work the tin mines, Muslims of Malaysian extraction, many who come to work the rubber plantations and the Chao Nam or sea gypsies who have occupied the area for a long time. The Chinese now comprise 35 percent of the Island’s population. They differ from those who settled in Bangkok and many other areas of Thailand in that they came from the Hokkien region of China, as did those who settled in Singapore and Malaysia. As elsewhere in Asia, many of the Chinese have made the transition from providing cheap labor to being merchants. The Chinese have inter-married with native Thais and have largely been assimilated into Thai culture. Today the descendants of the early Chinese settlers are responsible for much of the trade and commerce that take place on the Island.

The influence of Indonesian-Malayan culture is still apparent today in the ethnic makeup, language, art, and religion of the southern Thais. About 35% of the Thais living on Phuket are Muslims. Concentrated mostly around Surin and a few other big villages, they work as rice and rubber farmers.

In addition to Thai and Malay languages many also speak ‘Yawi’, an ancient dialect of the Malayan language.One of the most interesting groups of people who have lived on Phuket are the (or Sea Gypsies), traditionally a nomadic peoples who traveled from cove to cove, staying until the fish and other resources were depleted. They then moved on, allowing the cove to re-establish its former ecological balance before returning to repeat the cycle.

Their history and cultural lifestyles are hard to trace as they do not have a written language.

Sea Gypsies consist of three groups. The Mokens still prefer their ancestral sea nomad-style of living and are commonly found occupying the islands north of Phuket. The Orung Laut and the Moklens have settled on coastal areas. There are three Sea Gypsy villages in Phuket. The one located at Rawai is thought to be the oldest and is visited by busloads of tourists everyday. Another village is located 8km north of Phuket Town at Sapam Coast, and a third village is located on Siray Island which is accessible by bridge from Phuket Town.