Emblem of TAO Ko Tao

One year ago I noticed that the emblem of San Pu Loei in Chiang Mai featured the letters อ (Oh Ang), บ (Bo Baimai) and ต (To Tao) - the Thai abbreviation O.Bo.To. which stands for องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบล (Ong Kan Borihan Suan Tambon), in English called Tambon (Subdistrict) Administrative Organization (TAO or SAO). While that TAO has been upgraded to a municipality and had to change the design of the emblem, I now discovered another one with a similar design, and this time from the province I care about most.

The island Ko Tao (เกาะเต่า) administratively forms a subdistrict of Ko Pha Ngan, the larger island about 40 kilometers to the southeast. This subdistrict was created in 1982, previously the three administrative villages were still part of the Ko Pha Ngan subdistrict. In 1996 the local administration by the TAO was established, taking care of the now 1500 officially registered citizen.

As already mentioned, the emblem I found on the website of the TAO shows the three letters OBT, in this case below a stylized palm island with the sun setting (or rising). Quite clearly a fitting symbol, as this island best known for its diving locations and has lots of palm trees and sandy beaches. I was there only a few hours so far, as a stop during a cruise in the Gulf of Thailand. Actually, I wasn't on the island itself more than a few minutes, as most of the time it was snorkeling in the waters.

The drawing in this posting is from the SVG-Version I made, though definitely not perfect it seems to resemble the one on the TAO website closely enough. Now there only 141 other local government entities emblems left to collect to get a full coverage of the heraldry of Surat Thani...