Administrative offices in Surat Thani city

In Surat Thani, the administrative offices for the province, municipality and district are located at different places throughout the city, quite in contrast to to Saraburi where they are all located within one block.

The province hall (Sala Klang Changwat) and the provincial court (San Changwat) are located next to each other in two large buildings. Between the two buildings is a stone with the geographical location - 9° 7′ 54.32484″ North, 99° 19′ 53.90800″ East in WGS84 - but strangely this is the coordinate of a location 110 m south of the location of that stone both in Google Earth as well as according to my GPS tracker. In front of them is a large open space covered with grass, used for parades or other ceremonies. At the western side of the field is a statue of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V). The whole complex was build in the 1980s, after the old province hall was destroyed by a bomb planted by communist insurgents on March 19 1982. 5 people died.

The old province hall was located directly at the Tapi river, the place which is now occupied by the city pillar shrine. It was build in 1995 on the open space, which was used as a small sports fields after the old province hall was torn down.

The municipal office is located not far from the old bus terminal of the city. It also has a sports field in front, and one can often see locals doing exercise there in the evening. As one of the tasks of the municipality is the fire protection, the fire station is located directly next to the municipal office.

The last of the administrative offices within the city is the district office of the Mueang district. It is located not far from the city pillar shrine. The most irrelevant news about this office - within the last year it received a new painting, now it has a yellowish color, last year it was still white.

Another place is the official residence of the provincial governor, a villa located directly next to the Tapi river near the city pillar. There are of course many more offices from the central administration, for example the land registration office directly next to the district office, or the juvenile and family court next to the city pillar, but I left out these from both the above list as well as this map below.

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