Subdistrict name romanization

When I originally discovered the book ชื่อจังหวัด อำเภอ/กิ่งอำเภอ ตำบล เขต และแขวง ไทย-อังกฤษ (Thai-English transcription of changwat, amphoe, king amphoe, tambon, khet, and khwang approved by the Royal Institute, ISBN 9789747857047) as an eBook at the website of the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA), it was only available as four PDF files, which made it quite some work to go through all the 7000+ subdistricts and check and correct the names in my spreadsheet.

I was now recently browsing through the announcements at the website amphoeyim.com (District Smile), another website from the Ministry of Interior around the district administration, just to look if there anything new to me. It also had the same publication online there, however once I downloaded it to my surprise it was two Excel files and two PDF, the actual data now in much easier readable form. Funnily, the original source at DOPA had also changed since I last checked it and also contains the two Excel sheets instead of the PDF with the tables.

As the XLS files are last changed in 2007, they obviously cannot include fixes to the mistakes I noted back then - see my own sheet with the dubious or wrong transcriptions - nor contain the new subdistricts created in Bangkok last year.

I don't know if there will be any new edition of the book, yet even better than such a reference book would be an online list continuously updated, for example adding the transcription into the geocode list.

By the way, if anyone can get me the paper version of that book it'd be a nice addition to my library, though just for collection. If I recall correctly, I read that the book was mostly distributed to libraries, including the local ones in each province - maybe wasn't even sold commercially.

Thursday linkage

At One Tambon One Photo (OTOPh), Nai Wiang subdistrict of Mueang Phrae is featured, including a lot of information on the former residences of the local princes of Mueang Phrae.

Though not directly related with the topic of this blog, Mike Rose has just started another blog name The Temples of Thailand, featuring all of the Buddhist temples he visited, together with great photographs and driving directions. With more than 30,000 temples this blog can run even longer than the 7000 postings OTOPh can do. My own visit reports can be found in my travel blog.

An Excel sheet found at the Election Commission (ECT) lists all the local government entities which had ended their terms in last year and therefore had to hold elections, or were prone for a status change. The various sheets list the numbers by region, province, month, and a complete list, a total of 3827 entities. Most of them held their election on September 6th. Too bad there don't seem to be the same available for 2010 yet - should be a relatively short list, as no TAO was created in 1998.

Calendar with administrative events

As I missed this year's Prince Damrong day simply because I did not note the event in any calendar, I have now played with yet another of the cloud applications offered by Google and created a public calendar which I will fill with all events around the administrative units. Right now it is still very empty, but now whenever I will find anything worth noting - a local election date, the official creation of the new district Galyani Vadhana, award ceremonies at the Department of provincial administration, a big OTOP fair - I will add them into the calendar. Don't know if anyone else will find this one useful, or will even suggest me events for inclusion, but nevertheless I present it here.

New Muban in Surat Thani

Published in Royal Gazette on February 19, the province Surat Thani announced the creation of eight new administrative villages, all effective November 6 2009.

1. Mu 8 Ban Khao Phanom (บ้านเขาพนม), Pa Ron subdistrict, Kanchanadit district, split off from Mu 1 Ban Wang Sai (บ้านวังไทร). [Gazette]
2. Mu 9 Ban Huai Thun (บ้านห้วยถุน), Pa Ron subdistrict, Kanchanadit district, split off from Mu 1 Ban Wang Sai (บ้านวังไทร). [Gazette]
3. Mu 6 Ban Phru Khae Phatthana (บ้านพรุแคพัฒนา), Krut subdistrict, Phunphin district, split off from Mu 1 Ban Krut (บ้านกรูด). [Gazette]
4. Mu 7 Ban Si Charoen (บ้านศรีเจริญ), Tha Sathon subdistrict, Phunphin district, split off from Mu 2 Ban Bo Krang (บ้านบ่อกรัง). [Gazette]
5. Mu 11 Ban Si Khit (บ้านสี่ขีด), Bang Ngon subdistrict, Phunphin district, split off from Mu 8 Ban Sa Phan Mot (บ้านสะพานมอส). [Gazette]
6. Mu 14 Ban Tham Khong (บ้านถ้ำฆ้อง), Bang Sawan subdistrict, Phrasaeng district, split off from Mu 8 Ban Tham Rob Nam (บ้านถ้ำครอบน้ำ). [Gazette]
7. Mu 11 Ban Wang Tham (บ้านวังถ้ำ), Nam Hak subdistrict, Khiri Rat Nikhom district, split off from Mu 6 Ban Nam Tok Khlong Phai (บ้านน้ำตกคลองพาย). [Gazette]
8. Mu 26 Ban Hin Phota (บ้านหินพ่อตา), Prasong subdistrict, Tha Chana district, split off from Mu 19 Ban Mae Thalang (บ้านแม่ทะล่าง). [Gazette]

As it is a bit too much word to create maps for each of the Muban out of the boundary description like it I for the single new village in Sakon Nakhon earlier, I am now only presenting approximate placemarks with the center of each of the new villages. But if there will be more such announcements from other provinces now, I guess I will skip even that, maybe even skip to announce each village itself and only make a short collective posting here.


View New Surat Thani Muban in 2010 in a larger map
Since two of the new villages have the word Tham (ถ้ำ) meaning cave in their name - are there any caves there worth visiting, like the Wat Tham Singkhom in the same area?

Muban 77 and 78 - the answer

Shortly ago, I posted on two strange administrative villages only named Mu 77 and Mu 78. Since I just stumbled on yet another website which lists them - this time the one of TAO Phan Thong in Chonburi province, I tried once more to find any explanation on the meaning of these two villages. And this time I was successful - the subdistrict municipality Tha Kham in Chiang Mai also lists them, but unlike the previous cases it also add a note on them.

หมายเหตุ
หมู่ที่ 77 ทะเบียนบ้านกลางท้องถิ่นเทศบาล
หมู่ที่ 78 ทะเบียนบ้านกลางคนเดินทางไปต่างประเทศ

Note:
Mu 77 Central House registration of local municipality
Mu 78 Central House registration of people traveling outside the country

On another site Mu 78 is defined as ทะเบียนบ้านคนต่างด้าว which is even more clearly to understand - the registration of foreign residents. I am not sure what is the purpose of number 77, after some further googeling it seems this is used to register for missing persons which obviously cannot be assigned to any of the real villages.

Nakhon Phanom Provincial Administrative Organization

One local administration using the internet, and especially the Google tools, to a great extend is the provincial administrative organization (PAO) of Nakhon Phanom (องค์การบริหารส่วนจังหวัดนครพนม).

The chairman of the PAO (นายก อบจ.) Somchop Nitipoj (สมชอบ นิติพจน์) has his own blog, as well as his deputy (รองนายก อบจ.) Arom Wiangkan (อารมณ์ เวียงด้าน), who blogs for more than a year already. Even more, the schedule of the chairman can be viewed as a public Google calendar, and lots of photos from events organized by the PAO are in various Picasa albums. It also has a Powerpoint presentation with the biography of Somchop.

Though I can get only very few of what is written in these sources due to my limited Thai, I wish other government entities would have a similar open way to communicate with their population.

Changes in romanized names

Inspired by the article at BangkokLibrary I took a look at the United Nations Working Group on Romanization Systems report on the Thai romanization.

When using geographical names romanized according to the previous 1967 version of the official Thai romanization system, it is essential to know that earlier no distinction was made between the vowels u and ue (u was used in both cases, [...]) and some diphthongs were romanized differently (iu for character 48 /now io/, ieo for character 53 /now iao/ in the table mentioned).

I wasn't aware before that the romanization system, abbreviated RTGS for "Royal Thai General System of Transcription" in fact just dated from the year 2000, when a bigger revision was made. Now I checked it I even found the official announcement of the RTGS in the Royal Gazette (ประกาศสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี เรื่อง หลักเกณฑ์การถอดอักษรไทยเป็นอักษรโรมันแบบถ่ายเสียง).

This explains why in my first trips to Thailand I still saw the old airport spelled "Don Muang" everywhere, and only recently the street signs pointing towards that district have changed to "Don Mueang". I thought the policy to have street sign follow RTGS was enforced in the last decade, but now I know it was only the modification which made me notice that policy. But as you can see in this photo of the railway station Don Mueang (from the ThaiTransit blog) the old spelling still has survived.

Board on name changes of province, districts, etc.

I had referenced the committee on name changes of province, district, subdistrict and villages (คณะกรรมการพิจารณาเรื่องการขอเปลี่ยนแปลงชื่อจังหวัด อำเภอ และตำบล หมู่บ้าน) in several postings on Royal Gazette announcements already, but the only details I had about this committee so far were the rules on administrative entity name changes. But when I researched a bit around the recent subdistrict renamings Google returned me the proceedings of this board from 2007 to 2009. Though these files only contain the decisions and not the rationale for each change, these are nevertheless very helpful.

Working through the files, most of the changes were either already announced in the Royal Gazette, or for the municipalities and TAO were mentioned in the board meeting transcripts on the municipality upgrades. Interestingly most of these municipal name changes were approved by this board after they were decided in the municipal board. Below are the changes which did not become official yet, or which I haven't found in the municipal decisions of the board to consider draft laws.

• Meeting 1/2009 on October 13 2009
  
  • TAO Ngim (อบต.งิม), Phayao province, renamed to Phu Kham (อบต.ภูคาม)
• Meeting 2/2009 on October 21 2009
  
  • TAO Pa Ko Dam (ป่าก่อดำ), Chiang Rai province, renamed to Pa Ko Dam Phatthana (ป่าก่อดำพัฒนา)
  • TAO Mae Suai (แม่สรวย), Chiang Rai province, renamed to Wiang Suai (เวียงสรวย)
  • TAO Phayu (พยุห์), Sisaket province, renamed to Nong Saket (หนองสระเกษ)
  • TAO Ban Dung (บ้านดุง), Udon Thani province, renamed to Dung Nuea (ดุงเหนือ)

Not listed here are the name changes of temples (วัด), which are also processed by this committee. For a full listing of items in XML format, take a look at this file, which also includes the romanized names (except for the temples) and geocodes to make it more accessible.

I hope future (and also those before 2007) meetings will be published like that as well, or even better in the same way like the board meeting with the municipal decisions in longer transcripts, so the rationales for each renaming (and also the denied name changes) can be found as well.

Another four Muban renamed

Another four villages were renamed by three announcements in the Royal Gazette on February 11.

• Ban Kameng (บ้านกาเม็ง), Mu 1 of A-song subdistrict, Raman district, Yala province is renamed to Ban Kuemeng (บ้านกือเม็ง) [Gazette]. Interestingly, in the DOPA excel sheet this Muban is spelled Ban Kamaeng (บ้านกาแม็ง) instead.
• Ban Tha Kok Than (บ้านท่ากกทัน), Mu 1 of Khemarat subdistrict, Khemarat district, Ubon Ratchathani province is renamed to Ban Nuea (บ้านเหนือ) [Gazette].
• Ban Dong Chaphlu (บ้านดงชะพลู), Mu 5 of Bang Mafo subdistrict, Krok Phra district, Nakhon Sawan and Ban Noen Wiang (บ้านเนินเวียง), Mu 6 exchange their names [Gazette]. The website of the TAO already had the villages with their new names some month ago when I looked though it first, and since it contradicted with the Gazette announcement on the creation of Mu 6 I wondered at that time how comes the TAO has a mistake in their village list. Maybe the same happened in an earlier case where I noticed two villages having changed their names (or numbers).

Constituencies of the 1969 national elections

The system for the constituencies of the national election had changed twice in recent years already - in 1997 the single-member constituencies were introduced, which was reverted with the 2007 constitution when the constituencies with up to three members were reintroduced. But I did not know if there were other systems in use before 1997 than the multi-seat constituencies.

While reading paper Constitutionalism and Elections in Thailand by Clark D. Neher, found in the book Modern Thai politics I have found that the one-to-three-seats constituencies weren't the only system used in the past.

The Senate did accede to the governments request that the province be made the electoral constituency and the number of representatives from each province be based on the population within the constituency. The alternative proposal, narrowly defeated by the Senate, had called for single-member district constituencies.
[...]
The Senate's support for the provincial constituencies was due certainly to the government's intimation that the elections themselves might be cancelled if its wishes in that matter were not heeded. The pressure on senators to support provincial constituencies reflected the party's power among provincial urban politicians who had far less hope of winning elections in rural single-member district constituencies.

The election was held on February 10 1969, ending more than 10 years of military dictatorship without any parliamentary control, however in fact the winner of the election was the previous dictator Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn. Also, the legislature did not reach the end of its term, as in 1971 Thanom staged a coup against his own government and dissolved the parliament again.

Time between creation and opening of provincial courts

As the newspaper article on the creation of the provincial court Phra Pradaeng states that a second Royal act is necessary to actually open the new court, I have done a little bit of research in the Royal Gazette and found these acts now as well. They are titled "พระราชกฤษฎีกากำหนดวันเปิดทำการศาลจังหวัด" (royal act to set the date of opening operation of provincial court). Listing the five most recent ones shows that quite some time passes between the creation of the jurisdiction and the actual opening of the courthouse.

• Na Thawi, Songkhla, created in 1995, opened in 2007.
• Chai Badan, Lopburi, created in 1994, opened in 2007.
• Ko Samui, Surat Thani, created in 1996, opened in 2006.
• Thong Pha Phum, Kanchanaburi, created in 2004, opened in 2005.
• Nang Rong, Buriram, created in 1994, opened in 2002.

So, except for the case on Thong Pha Phum, it takes about 10 years between the creation of the jurisdiction and the actual opening of the courthouse. So the actual opening in Phra Pradaeng will be in 2020, unless the process is sped up a lot.

As it takes so long, there are also a total of eight already created provincial courts which still wait their actual opening. I have no idea on the actual progress on either of these courts or when they will be finished.

• Wichian Buri, Phetchabun (ศาลจังหวัดวิเชียรบุรี), created in 2007 (Gazette).
• Wiang Sa, Surat Thani (ศาลจังหวัดเวียงสระ), created in 2007 (Gazette).
• Chumphae, Khon Kaen (ศาลจังหวัดชุมแพ), created in 2007 (Gazette).
• Chiang Kham, Phayao (ศาลจังหวัดเชียงคำ), created in 2007 (Gazette).
• Phimai, Nakhon Ratchasima (ศาลจังหวัดพิมาย), created in 2007 (Gazette).
• Hua Hin, Prachuap Khiri Khan (ศาลจังหวัดหัวหิน), created in 2007 (Gazette).
• Hot, Chiang Mai (ศาลจังหวัดฮอด), created in 2009 (Gazette).
• Phra Pradaeng, Samut Prakan (ศาลจังหวัดพระประแดง), created in 2010 (Gazette).

Subdistrict and village rename in Nan and Nong Khai

On February 4, the announcement on two subdistrict and two administrative villages renamings were published in the Royal Gazette. All four name changes were decided in the meeting 3/2009 on November 10 by the committee on name changes of province, district, subdistrict and villages (คณะกรรมการพิจารณาเรื่องการขอเปลี่ยนแปลงชื่อจังหวัด อำเภอ และตำบล หมู่บ้าน).

Two subdistricts (Tambon) are renamed, one in Nan province and one in Nong Khai province.

• Suak subdistrict (ตำบลสวก), Mueang Nan district, Nan province, renamed to Bu Suak (ตำบลบ่อสวก). [Gazette]
• Song Hong subdistrict (ตำบลสองห้อง), Mueang Nong Khai district, Nong Khai province, renamed to Phon Sawang (ตำบลโพนสว่าง). [Gazette]

The question not answered by the announcement is whether the subdistrict administrative organizations (TAO) will also change their names accordingly. Maybe there will be a second announcement on these entities.

The two villages which receive a new name are both in Nan province.

• Mu 3 of Sathan subdistrict, Na Noi district, was renamed from Ban Rong (บ้านร้อง) to Ban Mai (บ้านใหม่). [Gazette]
• Mu 2 of Mae Sakhon subdistrict, Wiang Sa district, was renamed from Ban Tha Loe (บ้านท่าเลอ) to Ban Mongkhon (บ้านมงคล). [Gazette]

On this blog I found the rationale behind the name changes of these two villages, however my Thai is not good enough to fully understand it and present a translation here.

One Tambon too much

When I was revamping the code to create the list of the most common subdistrict names, I noticed that I accidentally included more subdistrict than the 7255 listed in the annual statistics from DOPA. These were subdistricts already abolished, or planned but not created ones. But even after that my code still found one subdistrict more, so I looked for which province was the problem - but found wrong subdistrict numbers in census data first which I will post on soon as well.

The E-Book with all the Muban names from DOPA includes statistics as well, and there the numbers matched with mine, except the one case I was looking for. This turned out to be in Pak Phanang district, Nakhon Si Thammarat province, which has 17 or 18 subdistricts. The only subdistrict which is suspicious is Pak Phanang (ตำบลปากพนัง) itself.

Yet there are some sources including this subdistrict and other which don't. The most authoritative should be the definition of the subdistrict boundaries in this district, published in the Royal Gazette in 2003. This only lists 17 subdistricts; however on the other hand the DOPA population statistics includes this subdistrict as part of the municipality Pak Phanang (เทศบาลเมืองปากพนัง). On ThaiTambon.com the code 801201 of this subdistrict is missing.

Other sources are maps, the map from amphoe.com shows no such subdistrict. Other maps do show it, for example Google Earth or MapGuideThailand. And since I did not know about these problems back then, the subdistrict map I created for Wikipedia also shows it.

So I am puzzled, since I find nothing on a subdistrict abolishment in the Gazette, but also don't believe in a mistake in the DOPA entity numbers.

Two municipalities renamed

Announced in the Royal Gazette on February 2, two municipalities have changed their name. In both cases the name was originally same as the corresponding subdistrict and is now modeled after the name of the district, as both form the major (or only) municipality within the district. Since both date back to sanitary districts, they only cover parts of the subdistrict. So though it is not stated anywhere, this also opens the possibility to upgrade the TAO responsible for the non-municipal areas of the subdistrict into a municipality later without having to change the name then.

The two municipalities renamed are

• Waeng (เทศบาลแวง), Phon Thong district, Roi Et, renamed to Phon Thong (เทศบาลตำบลโพนทอง).
• Huai Nuea (เทศบาลตำบลห้วยเหนือ), Khukhan district, Sisaket province, renamed to Mueang Khukhan (เทศบาลตำบลเมืองขุขันธ์).

Both renaming have been decided upon in the board meeting 60/2009 on November 19. Seems like I browsed through that transcript a bit too fast when it was placed on the website, as I only notice this point in the agenda now I explicitly searched for it.

Municipal upgrades delayed for how long?

There are 140 upgrades of TAO to subdistrict municipalities which have been decided upon in the board meetings but according to the annual statistics of the Department of Local Administration not been done till December 15. The Thai Wikipedian Potapt, who keeps the district articles on the Thai Wikipedia much more current than I manage to do on the English one, made me realize that most probably these upgrades have probably been set back for four years. The last number of upgrades last year was mainly due to the fact that twelve years ago in 1997 a total of 3637 TAO were created, which by now finished three terms of their councils. The Ministry of Interior upgraded mostly those TAO which were at the end of their electoral terms and were pending the new election in September last year. Now all of those 140 TAO already have a new council, and its not much likely the freshly elected councilors will agree on a premature end of their terms for the pending upgrade - as the councils of TAO and municipalities have a different number of councilors there always needs to be a new election of the council in case of a change of municipal level. So we will probably see most of these delayed TAO upgrades no earlier than 2013, and this year will be a quiet year as in 1998 no TAO was created.

The other open question is why were so many upgrades approved and then about a quarter of them not done. Budget reasons might be the best guess, though it should have been clear at the beginning of 2009 that the year won't be easy for state income with the financial crisis just beginning, so it'd be smarter only to upgrade the economically strongest TAO, and not all which were qualified. For comparison, in the Asian crisis in 1997, which however created a much deeper fall for the Thai economy, all of the district creations pending were abolished completely.

Royal Gazette title page in 1909

I have been working with publications in the Royal Gazette a lot, but only recently I first processed one which was on the starting page of a volume, so I could see the header displayed above. Notice that it features the Royal Coat of Arms of Siam, which was in use 1873-1910. The publication I was looking at was the creation of the sanitary district which later became the city of Nakhon Ratchasima in 1909 - พระบรมราชโองการ ประกาศใช้พระราชบัญญัติสุขาภิบาลในตำบลโพกลาง มณฑลนครราชสีมา.

The text under the coat of arms is ราชกิจจานุเบกษา (a bit hard to read since the า is written like a ligature) meaning Royal Gazette, and in the second line กรุงเทพมหานครในพระบรมมหาราชวัง (Krung Thep at Phra Borom Maha Ratcha Wang, i.e. the Grand Palace in Bangkok). The small line then lists the volume, issue and date of the publication - เล่ม ๒๕ (Volume 25) ฉบับเพิ่มเติม (Special issue) วันที่ ๓ มกราคม รัตนโกสินทร์ศก ๑๒๗ (January 3 Rattakosin Era 127 = 1909) หน้า ๑๑๘๓ (Page 1183). Quite odd are the numbers 4 and 1 on top of the ศก, these even cannot be entered in Unicode. Rikker hinted me that they probably mean the year number of the current reign - King Chulalongkorn was crowned in 1868, thus 1909 was the 41st year of his reign.

Newer issues of the Royal Gazette use the Garuda as the new state symbol instead on the cover pages.

Thursday linkage

A new set of nice links.

• Tribudragon visits the district office of Minburi, which might be the oldest still-original district office in Thailand. All of the buildings for the various administrative units I have seen so far are quite recent and all look very similar.
• Korat Weekends visits the district office of Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima.
• Bangkok Library is a great resource on the (English) libraries in Thailand, as well as some random other topics like maps of the Bangkok districts. Though I knew this site for quite some time already, now with this new linkage column I can finally give the return link for their review of my blog.
• The Museum of Nonthaburi was recently opened in the old province hall, in the center of the city Nonthaburi right at the river.

Mae Sot upgraded to a city

Yesterday the first transcript of a 2010 meeting of the board to consider draft laws (คณะกรรมการพิจารณาร่างกฎหมาย) was uploaded, directly with an important municipal change.

Already effective January 28, the town Mae Sot (เทศบาลเมืองแม่สอด) at the border to Myanmar has been upgraded to a city municipality (thesaban nakhon, เทศบาลนครแม่สอด). The reason why the upgrade was done so quickly is the fact that on January 28 2010 the term of the municipal council ended and an election of the council is necessary within 60 days after the end of term. The end of the council term is the easiest opportunity to change the municipal status, as no shortening of an electoral term is necessary.

What make me a bit wonder about this upgrade is that actually it was planned to upgrade Mae Sot to a special administrative area (องค์กรปกครองท้องถิ่นรูปแบบพิเศษ), probably modeled after Pattaya, incorporating some of the neighboring municipalities and TAO into one metropolis. I don't know whether the upgrade to a city means that the plans for the special administrative area have been shelved already, or just are expected to take too long to deny the town the larger responsibilities and opportunities which come with the higher municipal status any longer.

Province license plate graphic for Prachinburi

Published on January 27 was a new license plate graphic for the province Prachinburi, only available for passenger cars with less than 7 seats and a license codes obtained in the official auction.

While I know that rafting is a popular tourist attraction in Prachinburi province - especially at Kaeng Hin Phoeng - I don't get why the artificial climbing wall is special enough for the province to be featured on the license plate graphic. At least to my personal taste this graphic is clearly one of least appealing province graphic I have seen so far.

A bit strange is the fact that this announcement actually shows almost the same graphic which was already announced four years ago. The only changes are much stronger colors this time, and a few of the shirts and life vests having changed color. Even there were (and are) no politically problematic red or yellow shorts among them...

Largest town in province

In most cases the largest town for each of the 75 province is the town which contains the provincial administration, and has the same name as the province. But there are some exceptions. Originally I was only aware of Hat Yai, which due to its location at the railway developed into the economic center of Songkhla province and has grown larger than city of Songkhla. But in fact there are several more, using the population numbers of 2008.

• In Songkhla province, the captial city Songkhla (เทศบาลนครสงขลา) has a population of 72,920, whereas the city Hat Yai (เทศบาลนครหาดใหญ่) has more than double with 157,382 registered citizens. [1]
• Pathum Thani (เทศบาลเมืองปทุมธานี) is an very small town with only 18,843 citizen. There is not only one larger municipality in the province, it is just the 7th largest town - in order of population the larger municipalities are Rangsit (เทศบาลเมืองรังสิต, 76,843), Tha Khlong (เทศบาลเมืองท่าโขลง, 56,257), Thanyaburi (เทศบาลตำบลธัญบุรี, 53,749), Khlong Luang (เทศบาลเมืองคลองหลวง, 51,890), Khu Khot (เทศบาลเมืองคูคต, 45,610), Sanan Rak (เทศบาลเมืองสนั่นรักษ์, 22,609). [2]
• As long as the plan to create a new province isn't pushed forward, the largest town of Tak province is Mae Sot (เทศบาลเมืองแม่สอด, 35,042), nearly double of Tak town (เทศบาลเมืองตาก, 19,274). [3]
• In Chonburi province, the special administrative area of Pattaya (เมืองพัทยา, 104,797) is by far the largest, much more than Chonburi itself (เทศบาลเมืองชลบุรี, 33,067). In fact, also Laem Chabang, Ban Suan and Saen Suk are larger. [4]
• The other touristic hot spot opposite the Bangkok bay is Hua Hin (เทศบาลเมืองหัวหิน, 52,919), and it is also way larger than the provincial capital Prachuap Khiri Khan (เทศบาลเมืองประจวบคีรีขันธ์ , 18,060). [5]
• A very close case is in the deep south, where Narathiwat (เทศบาลเมืองนราธิวาส, 40,521) is still slightly larger than Sungai Kolok (เทศบาลเมืองสุไหงโกลก, 39,564), yet this may have changed in the meantime already. [6]