Thesaphiban magazine

Both the Department of Provincial Administration as well as amphoe.com recently placed "adverts" on their websites linking to their own publications, including some monthly magazines. Both link to another website called amphoeyim.com (อำเภอยิ้ม), meaning "district smile".

On that site there seem to be two magazines, one named Amphoeyim MAG same as the website, but it seems to be nothing interesting - one of the few things I can recognize is a horoscope - so I presume it's a magazine to entertain the employees at the various offices under the provincial administration. The second one is much more interesting - but sadly unlike the first only the title page and the preface are available online. At DOPA it also has the table of contents for some older issues (1998-2004), but scanned at a rather low resolution and thus hardly readable. This magazine is named Thesaphiban (นิตยสารเทศาภิบาล), the term used for the Thai administrative reforms at the beginning of the 20th century. In fact, that magazine dates back to these times, as was created by Prince Damrong to publicize news on his reforms to his subordinates and the local officers. The first issue was published on April 1 1906, so it celebrated its centenary just shortly ago. In the book "Provincial Administration of Siam" on these reforms by Tej Bunnag many footnotes refer to this magazine as a source. So it's interesting to see this magazine is still around after such a long time.

Though the contents is probably still way beyond my Thai reading abilities, it is still sad that this magazine is only available in the paper edition, even though it is produced by the government and thus not printed for profit they don't make it easily accessible online. I don't recall noticing this magazine in the bookstores before, but now I know about it I will try to catch myself a copy next time I'm in Bangkok for sure.

Ban Pong district during World War II

I had mentioned it in my list of district reassignments that the district Ban Pong (อำเภอบ้านโป่ง) was reassigned from Ratchaburi to Kanchanaburi in 1943, and returned to Ratchaburi in 1946.

But so far all I knew was this fact, and I could give the relevant announcements in the Royal Gazette for this. In the 1943 announcement additionally some subdistrict and villages originally belonging to Ban Pong changed to the districts Photharam and Mueang Nakhon Pathom. The 1946 announcement also stripped off the subdistrict Khao Khlung and Krap Yai from Tha Maka and added them to Ban Pong, while the subdistricts reassigned to Photharam were returned in a second announcement in 1946. So the district not only changed ownership twice, it also changed its shape significantly - both northern and western appendix were added, while it lost territory in the northeast and southeast.

Now Khun Wisarut gave the rationale for this change in a posting at the 2bangkok forums:

Eer during the War time (1943-1946), Ban Pong District has been transferred to Kanchanaburi to facilitate the local contributions for the Death Railway Construction and Maintainance. Before the Death Railway, Ban Pong was [and still] a dropping point for Kanchanaburi - since there is a main street linking Ban pong with Kanchanaburi (now a part of Highway 323 - Saeng Xuto Road) and Thanon Songphon (Now a part of Highway 323 - built in 1915) linking Ban Pong with Nakhon Pathom.

Subdistricts with a single village

As I mentioned before, the lowest number of villages (muban) within one subdistrict right now is two. Also, in all the subdistrict creation announcements, the lowest number of villages which formed a new subdistrict was two. However, this is only true for the creations since 1948, as in 1947 there were at least six newly created subdistrict which contained just a single village.

The first two of these new subdistrict are located in Palian district, Trang province, both created effective September 15 1947 (Gazette).

• Li Phang (ตำบลลิพัง), created by splitting village 3 of Thung Yao subdistrict. It now consists of 7 villages. Since 1997 it is administrated by the TAO Li Phang.
  
• Ba Wi (ตำบลบ้าหวี) - now in Hat Samran district - created by splitting village 3 of subdistrict Ban Na. It now consists of 4 villages. Since 1999 it is administrated by the TAO Ba Wi.
  

The other were created effective June 1 1947 (Gazette).

• Na Thung (ตำบลนาทุ่ง), Sawankhalok district, Sukhothai province, created by splitting village 6 of subdistrict Wang Mai Khon. It now consists of 8 villages. Since 1996 it is administrated by the TAO Na Thung.
  
• Bang Kao (ตำบลบางเก่า), Sai Buri district, Pattani province, created by splitting village 6 of subdistrict Pase Yawo. It now consists of 4 villages. Since 1996 it is administrated by the TAO Bang Kao.
  
• Nong Luang (ตำบลหนองหลวง), Umphang district, Tak province, created by splitting village 2 of subdistrict Umphang. It now consists of 3 villages. Since 2004 it is administrated together with neighboring Mae Klong subdistrict by the TAO Mae Klong.
• Mae Lamung (ตำบลแม่ละมุ้ง), Umphang district, Tak province, created by splitting village 3 of subdistrict Umphang. It now consists of 4 villages. Since 2004 it is administrated together with neighboring Umphang subdistrict by the TAO Umphang.

Municipal decisions for November 21 2008

Meeting number 87 from November 21 2008 with one TAO renamed and upgraded to municipality.

• Mae Chai, Mae Chai district, Phayao province, renamed to Ruam Chai Phatthana and upgraded to municipality (เทศบาลตำบลรวมใจพัฒนา) effective January 1 2009. The TAO was created in 1997, covers 14.8 km², 7 villages and 2,116 citizen. The rename was necessary as there is already a municipality name Mae Chai (เทศบาลตำบลแม่ใจ) covering the central parts of the Tambon.

What happened with Tambon Makluea

The many subdistricts created in 1947 include some strange cases, one I already mentioned with the subdistrict created twice. Another one is the creation of the subdistricts Makluea Kao (ตำบลมะเกลือเก่า) and Makluea Mai (ตำบลมะเกลือใหม่), which according to the announcement were both split off from a district named Makluea (ตำบลมะเกลือ). So far I was always able to identify the parent subdistrict for the new subdistricts, in case the name does not exist today anymore there was either an announcement which lists a name change, or by the description of the location of the new subdistrict I was able to identify a name change which apparently wasn't published in the Royal Gazette. But in this case I was not successful, but that's not the only thing strange on this.

When looking at the village numbers for the two new subdistricts, the strange thing is that Makluea Kao gets villages 1 to 3 from Makluea, while Makluea Mai gets the village 1 to 4 from Makluea. This of course must be wrong, as villages 1 to 3 cannot be assigned to both subdistricts - and the announcement does not say anything about these being parted.

From the names of the two subdistrict one would assume that Makluea Kao is the original one (Kao meaning "old"), and Makluea Mai the new one (Mai meaning "new"). ThaiTambon.com is no help with this one either - for Makluea Kao is simply says that it's an ancient subdistrict (ตำบลมะเกลือเก่า เป็นตำบลเก่าแก่), for Makluea Mai it says absolutely nothing on its history.

And to make it even stranger - when looking the Royal Gazette for any other announcement on this subdistrict, it turned out that in 1943 the forest Sung Noen (ป่าสูงเนิน) was declared a protected forest (ป่าคุ้มครอง) - and the announcement lists both Makluea Kao and Makluea Mai as subdistricts partially covered by this forest (Gazette).

My interpretation is that the subdistrict Makluea was split in two equally large new subdistricts, and the original subdistrict got renamed to Makluea Kao. However, in the announcement it was wrongly written down, instead of the renaming it became a creation. Maybe that'd even explain the village numbers, villages 1 to 4 got into Makluea Mai, while number 5 to 7 became the villages 1 to 3 of Makluea. The renaming of the subdistrict would not change the villages anymore then, so when writing the rename as a new creation it'd be exactly like this one, villages 1 to 3 stay villages 1 to 3. And even though this was announced in the Gazette in 1947 officially (and that announcement states the date of becoming effective on August 15 1947), the new subdistricts were in use before.

Gerrymandering the districts of Bangkok

I was just checking the news feed of Tour Bangkok Legacies where it announced photos of Wat Mahabut in Suan Luang district of Bangkok. The temple is famous due to the Mae Nak shrine, based on a popular ghost legend often featured in movies.

So far nothing unusual for a website on touristic places. But then surprisingly it has a piece which fits into this blog as well - according to the article the temple became part of Suan Luang district in 1997 due to a boundary adjustment, even though its historical ties are with neighboring Phra Khanong. It then reads

There's been a twist to this proposal to revert Wat Mahabut to the Phra Khanong district. This matter was discussed in a city council committee meeting on 4 July 2007 during which some members disagreed with the proposal to revert to the original boundaries.

They argued that the Mae Nak legend was mere folklore and had nothing to do with the district's history. Furthermore they suspect that the move had more to do with a hidden political agenda, a ploy in gerrymandering, rather than a genuine attempt to restore a cultural legacy to Phra Khanong.

The proposal to revert to the pre-1997 district boundaries would transfer about 20,000 people back to Phra Khanong district, a former TRT (Thai Rak Thai Party, the former ruling party) stronghold.

The change might tip the balance in favor of the Democrat Party in the next General Elections, as it was a Democrat councilor who proposed this change.

Well, I tried to find the announcement in the Royal Gazette on the change in 1997. While there was a boundary adjustment of Bang Chak subdistrict, the only subdistrict of Phra Khanong (Gazette), in real this did not change the boundary in the relevant part. The attached map from the announcement of the creation of Suan Luang district in 1993 (Gazette) already shows it belonging to Suan Luang subdistrict; and unless there was a boundary correction before then it was the creation of the district Prawet in 1988 (Gazette) which took that area from Phra Khanong district, as 1988-1993 Suan Luang was part of Prawet district.

But the apparently wrong year is not my point, the interesting part is the politics behind the proposal to change the district boundaries. The accusation of gerrymandering to secure Phra Khanong to the Democratic Party, hidden behind historical and cultural arguments. I don't know which part of Suan Luang was suggested to be transferred, but it remains interesting to see whether the fact it now has a national government led by the Democrats will resurrect this proposal.

Change of area of Kut Chum Phatthana subdistrict municipality

Announced today, the boundaries of the subdistrict municipality Kut Chum Phatthana (เทศบาลตำบลกุดชุมพัฒนา), Kut Chum district, Yasothon province was changed. The announcement, signed for publication on April 9 2008 already, includes as an appendix the exact definition of the boundaries of the municipality and a map. The text of the actual announcement however just states that the original boundaries changed now were announced in 1965 with the creation of the sanitary district (Sukhaphiban) Kut Chum Phatthana (สุขาภิบาลกุดชุมพัฒนา), which also included a map.

However comparing the maps of the two announcements however is a bit difficult, as the alignment of the streets does not fit at all. It seems to me that there was a serious mapping mistake in the old map, which shows the main street through the town as being completely straight, and only a slight change of direction towards the bridge over the two branches of the small river. Yet, comparing it with current map, the bridge is in east-west direction, then comes a 90° turn to the north and a slight curveing towards north-east. Also, Wat Phra Chumphon is drawn within the street rectangles in the old one, while in fact it is outside it nowadays - I don't think the temple has been moved. So I now have to take the maps in the old municipal announcement with a lot more care.

With the transcripts of the board meetings, it is even possible to trace the decision process for this change a bit - well, if you are able to read Thai, I can only guess what it is about. It was first discussed in meeting 12/2550 on April 5 2007, and then again in Meeting 15/2008 on February 22 2008.

Nice thing - with the map in the announcement I can now fine-tune the placemark for the district office in the Wikipedia article of the district, as well as I now know the location of the municipal office nearly directly next to it. And next to the municipal office Google Maps also shows a city pillar, which would be another addition to the list of city pillars outside the provincial capitals. Anyone can give details on that one? Just sad there are no hires satellite data in Google Earth for this town, and in PointAsia it is nearly totally covered with clouds.

Thesaban geocodes in TIS 1099:2548

The latest version of the Thai Industry Standard 1099 covering the geocodes includes codes for districts and subdistricts as well as the municipalities, while the first edition only covered the provinces. Those for districts and subdistricts are identical with the list published by the Department of Provincial Administration. However the municipal codes from TIS 1099:2548 are not in that list.

I had found these geocodes for the municipalities before on a list by the Office of Narcotics Control Board, not the place one would search for it. When I found them in the tables of TIS 1099:2548, it was good to see them confirmed by something official. However as I already noted this system of codes cannot be used anymore, as with the many TAO upgrades recently at least Nakhon Ratchasima already has more than 100 municipalities and districts, thus not enough codes to cover them all.

The main difference between the TIS 1099 codes and those of ONCB is the fact that the ONCB was much more complete, as it included all of the municipalities which existed around the year 2005. TIS 1099:2548 instead only has very few municipalities for each province, often just a single one, and the maximum being 7 codes for Chonburi - 2099 down to 2093. As this version of TIS 1099 was published in 2005 (B.E. 2548) it is strange that most of the municipalities which existed then were not included. So I systematically checked all the codes in that list trying to find the rules which municipalities were included.

In fact the rule quickly showed that it is only the municipalities before the upgrade of the sanitary districts in 1999 which are included. Also none of the municipalities created by upgrading TAO in after 1999 is in that tables - and even status changes which happened between 1999 and 2005 are missing. For example in Chonburi the town municipalities Ban Bueng and Saen Suk are listed as subdistrict municipalities, though the were upgraded in 2001. Thus it seems that despite the name TIS 1099:2548 the real data in that standard dates from no later than 2542, in other words was at least 6 years old. Luckily, at least the district and subdistrict table was still up to date, but only because no new such entity was created since 1998.

Municipal decisions for November 13 2008

Meeting number 84 from November 13 2008 with one TAO upgraded to municipality.

• Khok Salut (เทศบาลตำบลโคกสลุด), Tha Wung district, Lopburi province, effective January 27 2009. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 10.84 km², 7 villages and 2,010 citizen.

Locations of TAO offices

The websites of the Tambon administrative offices (TAO) usually include the address of the office, however for anyone not living near it translating this address into the actual location is an impossible task.

The first one where I tried to find the office was the one of the TAO Khanom in the north of Nakhon Si Thammarat province. While I succeeded to take photos of the district office and the municipality office of Khanom, the website of the TAO gives the address of the office (สำนักงานองค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลขนอม) just as

102/25 ถนนสายสี่แยก-ในเพลา หมู่ที่ 4
ตำบลขนอม
อำเภอขนอม
จังหวัดนครศรีธรรมราช 80210

However, that Sai Yaek-Nai Plao road (ถนนสายสี่แยก-ในเพลา) is a quite long one, starting at the municipality and going down south till Nai Plao beach. Even though there's hires imaginary at Google Earth for the area, I cannot make out any building with such a prominently green roof. And this address already includes a street name, most of the time the address just states the village number.

An example where it is a bit easier is the TAO Si Wichai (ศรีวิชัย) in Phunphin district. Hidden between the photos of the touristic attractions is a map with all these prominent places within their subdistrict, also including the boundaries of the three villages and the TAO office. But sadly this map is not fully drawn to scale, so though I could identify the streets with Google Earth and thus knew the approximate location, again I failed to identify the actual building.

After quite some searching I have found one TAO which actually put Google Maps to a use, and has created a map which shows the village boundaries as well as the location of the TAO office. Other maps created by that user apparently show things like planned road improvements. This laudable example is the TAO Mareng (มะเริง) in Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima district.

A few TAO offices are already included in the user-created map of WikiMapia, and as far as I know there's no good KML file with these entities at ThaiGoogleEarth.

Province graphics for car license plates

While in fact I was looking for the act on the license plates in the Royal Gazette, trying to find more information if and why the district Betong is the only district which has its own license plates, while otherwise it is only the provinces which are listed on them.

But what I found instead were announcements which specify a background graphic for each province, to be used instead of the plain white license plates. Yet so far I did not notice those colorful plates, this may be either because it's relatively new (the first provinces got a graphic in 2004, and still this year there are new ones) or just not much popular because of a higher price. Thus I have no photo of such a plate to show here, but will of course look out for one when I am in Thailand next time.

But nevertheless these graphics are interesting, as they display significant things of the province - landscape, culture or historic places. So somewhat similar to the emblems, which however are much more stylized and use less recognizable symbolic things. For example the of Surat Thani (Gazette) shows the Ang Thong archipelago, one of the natural highlights of the province. And funnily the view is exactly the one from the hilltop of Ko Wua Ta Lap, where I went once already.

ThaiTambon.com and Tambon histories

The website ThaiTambon.com, part of the One Tambon One Product (OTOP) project is an interesting compilation of information on the 7254 subdistricts. For every subdistrict it includes one page with the introduction of the subdistrict - location, history, subdivisions, etymology. Though the quality differs, sometimes the introduction only states the obvious - district and province; sometimes it just gives the number of villages while in other cases also gives the complete lists of the names; and the one most interesting for me currently the history is also often missing, incomplete or vague.

To give an example which I came accross while working through the many subdistricts created in 1947. The Gazette announcement has the creation of the subdistrict Bang Phli (บางพลี), Bang Sai district, Ayutthaya province, which was split from a subdistrict named Ban Ko Bang Phli (บ้านเกาะบางพลี), so I suspected this subdistrict was renamed to Ban Ko (บ้านเกาะ) afterwards as that is the name of another subdistrict in the district. As I haven't found any Gazette announcement on this I checked the ThaiTambon page on Ban Ko.

ประมาณปี 2500 – 2503 ต่อมาทางราชการได้รวมตำบลบ้านเกาะ และตำบลบางพลีเป็นตำบลเดียวกัน ชื่อตำบล บ้านเกาะบางพลี ซึ่งต่อมาแยกเป็นสองตำบลตามเดิม

which translates to "around 1957-1960 the government joined Tambon Ban Ko and Bang Phli into one Tambon named Ban Ko Bang Phli. This was later split into two Tambon as before again."

But as I now have the official document which states the split happened in 1947, the years given in ThaiTambon clearly must be wrong, or rather unlikely the same operation has been done twice. Sadly I cannot find the announcement on the merge of the two subdistrict or the name change for the remained subdistrict, that'd answer more questions.

Municipal decisions for October 30 2008

Meeting number 80 from October 30 2008 with two municipal upgrades.

• Subdistrict municipality Mae Cho (เทศบาลตำบลแม่โจ้), San Sai district, Chiang Mai province, upgraded to town status (thesaban mueang) effective 17 Dezember 2008.
• Phra Lap (เทศบาลตำบลพระลับ
  ), Mueang Khon Kaen district, Khon Kaen province, effective January 19 2009. The TAO was created in 1996, covers 48 km², 19 villages and 20,706 citizen.

Highest number of Muban in a newly created subdistrict

In the subdistrict creation statistics, I mentioned that in average a newly created subdistrict (Tambon) has about 8 villages. There were only few with a much higher so far, for a long time the record number were 23 villages for Sap Samo Thot (ตำบลซับสมอทอด), Nong Phai district, Phetchabun province (Gazette), which was created in 1968. But now going further into the past one subdistrict with much more villages showed up - Phek Yai (ตำบลเพ็กใหญ่), Phon district, Khon Kaen (Gazette), created in 1949. This had no less than 32 villages split off from Mueang Phon subdistrict. Mueang Phon had at least 48 villages before this - still a bit away from the highest number of villages however.

As a sidenote - the PDF of this announcement is slightly broken, as the first page in the PDF is actually the last page of the announcement. Also, the village codes are quite difficult to read, unlike the newer announcements they are written much smaller, so I sometimes have to guess the number as it is hardly recognizable with the scan quality.

Results of the Bangkok gubernatorial elections

Yesterday was the election of the governor of Bangkok, the second one within 3 month due to the resignation of Apirak Kosayodhin just two month after being elected for a four year term. There are still no final results, as the votes for Phaya Thai district were not yet counted - a few of the ballot boxes were not sealed corrected and thus a complaint was issued. It will thus take a bit longer than last time to see the final results, but even with a whole district missing the general outcome is already clear.

The numbers as of January 12, 19:35, published on the starting page of the Bangkok city administration

1. Sukhumbhand Paripatra, 934,602 votes, 44.1%
2. Yuranan Pamornmontri, 611,669 votes, 25.2%
3. Nattakorn Devakula, 334,846 votes, 15.8%
4. Kaewsan Atibhoti, 144,779 votes, 6.8%
5. Leena Jungjanja, 9,043 votes, 0.4%

What is interesting - the result is quite similar with the one three months ago, only the names of some candidates have changed. The candidate of the Democratic Party won with 44.1% (last time ), the candidate of TRT/PPP/PTP was second with 25.2% (last time also 25.2%), the independent candidate as third with 15.8% (also the same percentage last time), another independent one with 6.8 (last time 12.1%), and the first of the non-notable candidates again Leena, who even gained a little bit since last time (0.4% vs. 0.3%).

As the Democratic Party together with their coalition partners also won most of the by-elections necessary to fill the seats in the national parliament after the banning of the PPP officials, last Sunday was quite a happy day for the Democrats. I can only hope that this will give them the chance to do their work, Thailand needs a stable government now with all the global crisis as well as the self-made tourism crisis.

Administrative offices in Prachuap Khiri Khan

As the town Prachuap Khiri Khan itself is rather small, compared to the size of the province, the important administrative offices are all close to each other. I went there just once, taking the dinner break there on the road trip from Surat Thani back to Bangkok. As it was just a stopover and everyone already tired and wanting to be back home, I only had short time to take some photos.

When entering the town, the provincial hall (Sala Klang) is hardly to be missed, a large building with a typical blue roof directly in the extension of the road. However the most important place I wanted to see was the city pillar shrine (Lak Mueang), which is located close by as well. The building style of the shrine is different from that in other provinces, as it is built in Khmer style modeled after the several Khmer temple ruins found especially in the northeast of Thailand. I don't know why this style was chosen as Prachuap Khiri Khan has no Khmer ruins. Just speculating - when the province Prachuap Khiri Khan was created, the now Cambodian province Koh Kong located opposite the Gulf of Thailand was named Prachanta Khiri Khet, a kind of a sister province. Maybe someone who can read the sign to the right can shed a light on this.

The only other office I could take a photo was the provincial court (San Changwat), located directly opposite the road of the province hall. While I tried to walk little bit more to search, I sadly could not remember the exact location of the other two important ones - the district office of the Mueang Prachuap Khiri Khan district and the municipality office of the town Prachuap Khiri Khan, so both have no photo yet. The PAO of Prachuap Khiri Khan seems to have a separate office, as I guess the one on the top banner is the office building. But I have no idea where it is located, I even cannot find a street address on that website.


View Larger Map

Muban numbers when creating new subdistricts

When new subdistricts are created, the villages (muban) which form the new subdistrict are not assigned in a random order. In the many announcements I have processed so far, one system I noticed relatively often is the attempt to minimize the number of villages which change their number. Maybe the most striking example for this is the creation of Kham Phai (ตำบลคำไผ่), Loeng Nok Tha district in Ubon Ratchathani (now in Thai Charoen of Yasothon province, since the subdistrict experienced the creation if a new province in 1972 and a new district in 1992). This one was created in 1951 (Gazette) by splitting 19 villages from Som Pho subdistrict. Most of these villages kept their number - for example village 3 of Som Pho became village 3 of Kham Phai. In fact, only village 1 and 2, 10 and 11 and 17 till 19 of Kham Phai did have different numbers before.

While this system is relatively common, it by no means was the rule, there are also many announcement were the villages got new numbers even though it would have been possible to resort them another way to make some village keep their number. And of course there were also many cases where it wasn't possible to do such at all, as all the villages split off had numbers higher than the highest number in the new subdistrict. Or, to say it with numbers, out of the 22168 villages reassigned since 1950, 3422 or 15.4% kept their number. Also interesting - while in the 1990s the percentage was 24, and the rate goes down when going further into the past. In the 1950s it was just 7.5% which kept number.

Regions defined by DOPA

I mentioned them shortly while presenting the district officers of the year earlier - the list of finalists for that award shows the provinces grouped into 12 regions named Khet (เขต). Not to be confused with the district in Bangkok which are also named Khet; and as the head officers of the Bangkok districts are not appointed by DOPA Bangkok isn't included into the following list anyway.

• Region 1: Chiang Mai, Tak, Mae Hong Son, Lampang, Lamphun
• Region 2: Chiang Rai, Nan, Phayao, Phrae, Sukhothai, Uttaradit
• Region 3: Kamphaeng Phet, Nakhon Sawan, Phichit, Phitsanulok, Phetchabun, Uthai Thani
• Region 4: Nonthaburi, Nakhon Pathom, Pathum Thani, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Samut Songkhram, Samit Sakhon, Ang Thong
• Region 5: Chachoengsao, Nakhon Nayok, Prachinburi, Lopburi, Saraburi, Singburi
• Region 6: Chanthaburi, Chonburi, Trat, Rayong, Samut Prakan, Sa Kaeo
• Region 7: Kanchanaburi, Chainat, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Phetchaburi, Ratchaburi, Suphanburi
• Region 8: Nakhon Phanom, Loei, Sakon Nakhon, Nong Khai, Nong Bua Lamphu, Udon Thani
• Region 9: Khon Kaen, Chaiyaphum, Nakhon Ratchasima, Buriram, Maha Sarakham, Surin
• Region 10: Kalasin, Mukdahan, Yasothon, Roi Et, Si Sa Ket, Amnat Charoen, Ubon Ratchathani
• Region 11: Chumphon, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Ranong, Surat Thani, Krabi, Phang Nga, Phuket
• Region 12: Trang, Phatthalung, Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, Songkhla and Satun

The 13th entry in the list is a special mention for the outstanding district officer at the southern boundary districts of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat.

I don't know if these twelve regions are used for other administrative tasks with DOPA as well, or were just created for this district officer award.

Municipality rename not mentioned in Board Meeting transcript

In the meeting 42/2008 on June 4 2008, the committee responsible for the municipalities decided to upgrade the TAO Samnak Khun Nen to a subdistrict municipality, and as the central part of the subdistrict was already covered by a municipality named Samnak Khun Nen - the former sanitary district Samnak Khun Nen - the new municipality also had to receive a new name. According to that transcript, this new name was chosen as Luang Pho Khian (เทศบาลตำบลหลวงพ่อเขียน), apparently after a famous monk from that area.

However I just started to take a look at the Gazette announcements on the constituencies for the municipal council elections - the announcement on the upgrade/rename itself wasn't published yet. But just one of the very first ones I looked into was strange, since I could not find the municipality it referred to. After some searching I noticed that in fact this municipality named Wang Bong (เทศบาลตำบลวังบงค์) must be the same as that Luang Pho Khian set up in June. However I could not find any of these transcripts changing the name to Wang Bong, I could only confirm that the new name is also used in the list of local administrative changes from the Department of Local Administration.

Seems like I have to check that list of changes in detail as well to see if there are any other changes not mentioned in the transcripts.

Another Tambon created twice

I have come across a second subdistrict which seems to be created twice, this time in Sakon Nakhon. The subdistrict Tan Noeng Mai (ตำบลตาลเนิ้งใหม่) in Sawang Daen Din district was first created in 1959 by splitting off nine villages from Tan Noeng (Gazette). However, in 1970 another subdistrict with the same name was created, this time with eight villages from Tan Noeng (Gazette). But I haven't found any announcement in which that subdistrict was abolished in its first 10 years. I am not sure if the two subdistricts covered roughly the same area, as the villages were not named in the announcements, only their numbers given.

The website on this subdistrict at ThaiTambon has only a few words on its history - ตั้งมาประมาณ 60 ปี, which means it was created about 60 years ago. And this is most likely wrong, I guess it refers to the subdistrict Tan Kon. This mistake probably originates in the fact that in 1973 the subdistrict Tan Noeng Mai was renamed to Tan Noeng, while the one previously named Tan Noeng since then is known as Tan Kon. (Gazette)