Origin of the name "Sala Klang"

Issue 5 of the @Amphoe magazin is available online now, and probably being available in print very soon. In their section "Things you may not know about Administration" (Page 21), they quote from the book "Thesaphiban" by Prince Damrong, father of the administrative system still in use today.

However, the governor’s home differed from other people's homes in being in a highly secure area centered on the governor's home known as a chuan. As such, government business would be conducted in a large pavilion on nearby grounds outside the bulwarks surrounding the governor's residence. This pavilion became known as the sala klang ("central pavilion").

Several of these former governor homes have been preserved, and at least two of them can be visited - the National Museum in Songkhla is in the former residence of the province governor, also the Ratchaburi National Museum is in the former provincial administrative building dating back to 1922, and the former residence of the Monthon administrator is located right next to it. And there are probably many more preserved, those two are just the ones I visited.

Population statistics 2015

Last week, the Department of Provincial Administration officially published the population numbers as of December 31st 2015. The reason why I said officially - the numbers were actually already available before January 18th, when I downloaded them and added them into my XML structure. I even added them in several WikiData items already. Sadly, the actual population data is only linkable at province and district level, the one for the whole country needs a POST call and thus cannot be linked, so can only be reached from the DOPA website itself.

As usual, this population number only includes the registered Thai residents, and since often Thais are still registered at other places than their actual residence, these numbers are to be taken with care. The census data however is supposed to list the actual residence, and also includes foreigners. Anyway, according to this statistics

• Thailand has a population of 65,729,098, of which 32,280,886 are male and 33,448,212 female.
• Compared to 2014, the population has increased by 604,382 or 0.9%.
• Bangkok remains the most populous province with 5,696,409 citizen, followed by Nakhon Ratchasima with 2,628,818 and Ubon Ratchathani with 1,857,429 (Chiang Mai is only the 5th).
• The least populated provinces are Ranong with 187,536 and Samut Songkhram with 194,376 citizen.

Only other thing which I noticed during the download - the subdistrict municipality Klet Kaeo (เทศบาลตำบลเกล็ดแก้ว) in Chonburi province now has received its own geocode 2060, which is not yet listed in the CCAATT list.

New administrative village in Phichit

Last week, the creation of a new administrative village (Muban) in Phichit province was announced in the Royal Gazette. Signed by the province governor on December 30 and published February 4th, it became effective the day after publication. Unless there were announcements which didn't make it to the Royal Gazette, this was the first new Muban since January 2014.

Mu 2 of Nong Sano subdistrict (ตำบลหนองโสน), Sam Ngam district was split, the northern part making up the new Mu 20. As both Mu 2 and Mu 20 cover the central settlement of Nong Sano, both are named Ban Nong Sano (บ้านหนองโสน). The announcement includes the boundary definition of both the newly created as well as the modified Muban, which I have tried to translate into a little map. The boundary is defined by some fixed points and a natural boundary between them, however not in all cases I could find such a natural boundary, so I just draw a straight line instead. Sadly the website of the TAO Nong Sano is no longer online, and the interesting pages aren't archived in archive.org, so I cannot check if there are any detailed information on the original size of the Muban - but with those boundaries I draw Google Maps calculated that Mu 20 covers an area of 4.8 km², and Mu 2 now covers 3.9 km².