The most recent migrations (17th-18th centuries) from Satun and Trang to Ko Yao Yai and Ko Yao Noi is corroborated by the particular dialect spoken on the island. Numerous cave paintings hidden in the many islands of the bay, extending from 2,000 years ago to last century, attest to the influence of distinct communities in the emergence of a mixed origin population, living now in the provinces of Phang Nga, Phuket, Krabi, and Satun.

Most probably the Mon stock remains prevalent for most of the people living in southern Thailand today, including the people of Ko Yao. They melded with southern migrants from Malaysia and with northerners (Thai), over centuries of commercial exchange and political conflict. The Mon population, linguistically and culturally belonging to the Khmer ethnolinguistic group, settled in peninsular Thailand ruling over maritime states like Ligor ( Nakhon Si Thammarat). The 3,500 or so inhabitants of Ko Yao Noi are thought to be recent migrants from the Malay Peninsula (Satun, Trang). Sea Gypsies (Moken people) inhabited the area before anybody else, except maybe other nomadic people like forest hunters and collectors (Sakai, Negritos). Ko Yao Yai is significantly larger than Ko Yao Noi. Ko Yao Yai is also a natural beauty, the less developed of the two islands. It is often described as one of the last islands in the region to not be over-developed. Ko Yao Noi remains a beautiful island, where most people believe that the island should be preserved from human despoliation. There are two main islands, Ko Yao Noi ('small long island') and Ko Yao Yai, ('big long island') with Noi being the more developed of the two. Ko Yao (เกาะยาว), sometimes written Koyao, is a group of islands between Phuket and Krabi. Ko Yao, with Phuket to the west and Krabi to the east

Koh yao noi bungalow