Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Requirements for the thesaban levels

I had raised the question here shortly ago, and now Rikker could answer it simply by reading the law texts accessible via the Royal Gazette online database. All these information I was unable to find in English anywhere, and now he updated the corresponding Wikipedia article including the links to the law texts, so now these facts are easily accessible for non-Thai as well.
  • Thesaban Nakhon (City)
    • 1934: Population of 30,000, population density of 1,000 per km²
    • 1939: Population of 30,000, population density of 2,000 per km², and sufficient income
    • 1953: Population of 30,000, population density of 3,000 per km², and sufficient income
    • 2000: Population of 30,000 and sufficient income
  • Thesaban Mueang (Town)
    • 1934: Population of 3,000, population density of 1,000 per km²
    • 1939: Population of 5,000, population density of 2,000 per km², and sufficient income
    • 1953: Population of 10,000, population density of 3,000 per km², and sufficient income
    • 2000: Population of 10,000 and sufficient income

However for the subdistrict municipalities (thesaban tambon) the requirements are not fixed in the law texts itself. It would of course be good to know where and how these were defined, and how these have developed since the first Thesaban act of 1934.

At least this answers one of the points which were odd to me on the upgrade of Ko Samui to town status earlier this year. As I did not know that the population density requirement was dropped in 2000 with the 11th amendment of the Thesaban act, I thought it cannot qualify for this status. It's a pity my Thai language skills are improving so slowly, as this example shows again how many questions could easily be answered by reading Thai sources.

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