The short-listed entries -- from Finland, the United States, Spain, China and Australia -- were chosen from 379 contestants from 43 countries and head to the second round, developing their designs before one is chosen in May.

The memorial will be erected in a national park along on the coast of Phang Nga province, which was hardest hit by the tsunami.

On December 26, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra will lay a foundation stone at the park as part of commemorations to mark the first anniversary of the disaster, and the winning design will be built upon it.

Each of the five finalists will receive a 25,000-dollar prize, while the winner, due to be announced May 22, will then work with a Thailand-registered architect to build it in a process expected to take six months.

The seven judges favoured entries that had a minimal environmental impact, economy of expression and respect for nature, a "clear symbolic vision" and worked with the topography and climate of the site, the judges said.

"We are concerned that the eventual prize-winning project should provide a beginning for thinking about new kinds of commemorative structure in the future that incorporate energy for affirmation and renewal along with the opportunity for silent reflection," judging president David Elliott said in a statement.

Most entries, about 23 percent, came from Thailand, followed by the US, Germany, Japan Australia and Britain.

The finalists:

Finland: Avanto Architects, Anu Puustinen and Ville Hara.

United States: VeeV Design, Raveevarn Choksombatchai, William Oren and consultant Andrew Shanken.

Spain: Ana Somoza Jimenez, Angel Martinez, Eva Sebastian Penin and Raquel Lozano.

China: Hou Liang.

Australia: Richard Weller, Gary Marinko, the University of Western Australia, Mike Rowlands and Bruce Rowe.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.