1960 census data for Chiang Mai

One of the antiquarian books I bought some time ago was one of the census data booklet of the 1960 census. While I personally would have preferred to get the one on Surat Thani, I guess the one I got on Chiang Mai might even be more interesting to my readers.

There are a total of 19 tables in the booklet, starting from the population numbers per district, the age structure, marriage status, place of birth, migration in the last five years, ability to speak Thai, foreign citizenships, religion, literacy, school grades and higher education, household sizes, number of children per woman, economic activity. A total of 35 pages with mostly numbers, so I have so far only looked into the most important tables, and translated the population numbers per district into a online spreadsheet embedded below.



Table 2 and 3 contain the age distribution of the population, in table 2 for the whole province and in table 3 for each district. Those (as well as the table 1) I have translated into my XML structures, making Chiang Mai the only province thoroughly covered in the census1960.xml file.

One thing which make the comparison with the last census of 2010 a bit difficult is the fact that in 1960 there were only 17 district, whereas today there are 25, so for those districts which have been split one has to be careful when comparing the numbers. Also as I don't have the corresponding numbers for 1970 or 1980, so a timeline isn't possible yet either.

Rename of Khilek municipality

Yesterday, the rename of Khilek subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลขี้เหล็ก) in Mae Taeng district, Chiang Mai province to Chom Chaeng (เทศบาลตำบลจอมแจ้ง) was announced in the Royal Gazette. As law.moi.go.th remains inaccessible, I could only now find with the Google cache that this name change was discussed in the board meeting on February 4 of the board to consider draft laws, but apparently wasn't discussed in the board to consider name changes. In fact, that board meeting is currently the only link which Google shows for Chom Chaeng, though now soon Wikipedia and Wikidata as well as this posting will also show.

New district for Chiang Mai

The plan to create yet another new district in Chiang Mai to be named Nanthaburi (อำเภอนันทบุรี) seems to be getting steam. In September, the proposal was submitted to the province governor, who then already gave his support to the plan - and this was renewed by the newly appointed governor as well. End of October, the PAO Chiang Mai also approved the proposal. Today, the strategy group of the province administration (กลุ่มงานยุทธศาสตร์จังหวัดเชียงใหม่) had the proposal on its agenda as well. The report on this meeting says that the proposal will be submitted to the Ministry of Interior soon, proposing to create the district as a special case since it does not match the normal criteria for a new district.

• a population of at least 25,000
• at least 4 subdistrict
• new district office to be at least 20 kilometer away from the district office of the parent district
• approval by the local government entities affected

The proposed district will have just two subdistricts - Mae Tuen (ตำบลแม่ตื่น) and Mon Chong (ตำบลม่อนจอง) - which together have a population of just 15,388 (as of December 31 2011). I don't fully understand that according to the article today this new district is supposed to be done as part of the 80th birthday celebration of HM the Queen, as that was already in August this year, and the district cannot be created retroactively.

As can be seen in the map, the area of the new district (in red) is very remote not just from the district Omkoi to which it belongs now, it is also about the most remote part seen from the center of the province. Yet even though it is so remote, Google Streetview was already there...

New districts proposed

Recently, proposals for new districts showed up in the Thai news. As far as I know, at this time these are just proposals, and it is still completely open if and when these will get officially proposed by the Ministry of Interior to the cabinet, the usual step before an act to create a district is sent to the parliament.

In Chiang Mai, a new district named Nanthaburi (อำเภอนันทบุรี) covering the two subdistricts Mae Tuen and Mon Chong of Omkoi district, is requested by the citizen in this area. With a population of 15,388 and just two subdistricts it does not make the necessary preconditions for a new district, only its remoteness from Omkoi - 76km on a very bad road - may give the proposal more weight. The proposal was received by Chiang Mai governor Mom Luang Panadda Diskul, who promised to raise the topic at the Ministry of Interior. However, few days later his transfer to an inactive post was approved, so his support for the proposal won't help the citizen anymore. However, this district proposal isn't really new, already in 2009 I had stumbled on it and added it into my XML, but sadly didn't kept any of the sources at that time.

Just yesterday, the Board of Directors of the Southern Border Provinces Development Strategy (กรรมการยุทธศาสตร์การพัฒนาจังหวัดชายแดนภาคใต้) has proposed a new district to be created in the province Yala (hopefully my translation of the news report isn't that wrong).

ที่ประชุมยังเห็นชอบในหลักการให้ตั้งอำเภอใหม่ขึ้นอีกแห่งหนึ่งในจังหวัดยะลา โดยรวมพื้นที่บางส่วนของอำเภอเมือง กับตำบลโกตาบารู อำเภอรามัน จังหวัดยะลา ขึ้นเป็นอำเภอใหม่ เนื่องจากเป็นพื้นที่ที่มีปัญหาความมั่นคง มีสภาพเศรษฐกิจและสังคมที่ซับซ้อน รวมทั้งประชากรเพิ่มขึ้น ทำให้การแก้ปัญหา และการพัฒนาไม่เกิดประสิทธิภาพ และประสิทธิผลเท่าที่ควร ซึ่ง กพต.จะมอบหมายให้กรมการปกครอง กระทรวงมหาดไทยดำเนินการต่อไป
Conference approve in principle to set up another new district in Yala province. Some part of Mueang district and Kota Baru subdistrict, Rama district to be raised to a new district. Reasons are that the area have problems with stability, economy and social, which get more complicate with the raising population. To solve the problems and develop efficiently, the board proposes the issue to the Ministry of Interior.
Source: Manager, ทุ่มอีกมหาศาลเอื้อดับไฟใต้ กพต.อนุมัติซื้อ “ชางลี” โรงแรมร้างกลางเมืองยะลา, September 18 2012

Of course I will follow these proposals and report whenever they come closer to get implemented.

Municipality area changes in Chiang Mai

Announced today was the change of area of the municipalities Chom Thong (เทศบาลตำบลจอมทอง) and Ban Luang (เทศบาลตำบลบ้านหลวง), both in Chom Thong district of Chiang Mai province. Though it was announced in two separate publication [Chom Thong, Ban Luang], in fact the two belong together as it was a transfer of area from Ban Luang to Chom Thong.

The reason for this transfer of area goes back to the creation of the sanitary district Ban Luang back in 1956 [Gazette], which at that time only covered the more densely populated area around the district office. In 1999 the sanitary district was upgraded to a municipality, in 2000 it was renamed to Chim Thong [Gazette], to have the same name as the district. In 2009 the TAO Ban Luang was upgraded to a municipality as well [Gazette], but since this covered the whole subdistrict area except those parts covered by Chom Thong municipality, this in fact meant that the municipality Ban Luang is split into two parts - the main part west of Chom Thong, and a small appendix east of it till the Ping River, which marks the boundary to Lamphun province. With these two announcements, this oddity is corrected, giving Ban Luang municipality a continuous area, and enlarging Chom Thong municipality to the west. Also a smaller area west of the original Chom Thong at the southern boundary of the subdistrict is added.

Sadly I have not enough time to create a map showing the old and new boundaries, so if you're interested in the details, there are maps are in the above linked announcements. The image above is from the 2009 TAO upgrade announcement, and shows Chom Thong hatched, and the subdistrict boundary by the thicker line.

Chiang Mai Maha Nakhon

Alerted by Khun Wisarut in the 2bangkok forum, I became aware of a draft law which would convert Chiang Mai province into a special administrative area similar to Bangkok. I have found the full text and a summary of the main points at the iLaw website. I am trying to summarize these even further to the main points from my perspective.

• Section 6: Chiang Mai Maha Nakhon (เชียงใหม่มหานคร) is a local administrative unit.
  
• Section 8: The districts (Amphoe) are to be converted into urban districts (Khet), the subdistricts (Tambon) into urban subdistricts (Khwaeng).
  
• Sections 10,11,28: The citizen elect a city council, with the councilors elected in constituencies, each having about 100,000 citizen. Council works as legislating body as well as to check performance of governor.
  
• Section 43: The citizen elect a governor.
  
• Section 70: Each of the district has an elected district council with at least seven councilors.
  
• Section 113, 127: The PAO and the municipalities are dissolved
  
• Village and subdistrict headmen and subdistrict doctors stay in office, but report to the district officer or governor instead to the central government.
  

As iLaw is a non-government site where everybody can suggest new legislation, it is far from sure that this draft law will get adopted into the official legislative procedure, especially as there were other planned special administrative areas in discussion by the past government. It depends a lot on what policies the new government has in mind for the decentralization.

Khwaeng of Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is one of the few municipalities which have an additional subdivision into subdistricts (Khwaeng, แขวง). Though I don't know yet the history or actual tasks of these subdistricts, and their relation to the boroughs (Chumchon), I have now found them actually mentioned in the Royal Gazette in an publication where I did not expect them. In 2003, the constituencies for the municipal council were defined and published in the Royal Gazette.

Now, as Chiang Mai is a city municipality (Thesaban Nakhon), the municipal council has 24 members, elected in four constituencies with 6 councilors each. These four constituencies are defined as follows

• Constituency 1: แขวงนครพิงค์ (Khwaeng Nakhon Ping)
• Constituency 2: แขวงกาวิละ (Khwaeng Kawila)
• Constituency 3: แขวงเม็งราย (Khwaeng Mengrai)
• Constituency 4> แขวงศรีวิชัย (Kwaeng Siwichai)

Thus the constituencies directly coincide with the subdistricts. Yet for Nonthaburi, the other municipality which I know to have Khwaeng, the constituencies are not defined like this. Whether the subdistricts for Chiang Mai came first and had similar population numbers and could thus be used as constituencies later on, or were created simultaneously with the constituencies i an open question. I haven't been able to find any announcements in the Royal Gazette on the creation of these subdistricts, and even the website of Chiang Mai does not give much detail on them either.

Changwat Fang

When I checked for information on the district names in Chiang Mai which are present in the geocode list, but do not exist (yet), one result was that I became alert on the forthcoming creation of Galyani Vadhana district. But actually this was not the only thing I found, the second was a thread in the cm108 forum on the creation of a new province Fang.

This new province would consist of the three districts Fang, Mae Ai and Chai Prakan. Historically, the area was the Mueang Fang, first a district of Chiang Rai and in 1925 reassigned to Chiang Mai. Mae Ai was split off from Fang district in 1967, Chai Prakan in 1988. In total, it'd have a population of nearly 250.000 and an area of 2135 km² - which would rank it at 66th position by area and 68th position by population among the existing provinces.

Those petitioning for this new province even set up a website named FangOnline. Most interesting on that website is the campaign timeline, which I translated to present it here. I have also borrowed the campaigning photo below from their site.

Photo courtesy of FangOnline

• March 26 2009: Committee to campaign for creation of Fang province submitted petition to Speaker of the Parliament.
• April 5 2009: Committee submitted petition to prime minister in order to get acknowledge and support.
• June 16 2009: Committee submitted petition to vice chairman of parliament together with a list of 11,022 signatures of supporters

Though I don't think this petition will have much chance of being successful - it's a rather small area with relatively few citizen, so the costs of the new administration would be much higher than any gain for the more direct access to the administration, especially by reducing the distances to the province hall. But who knows, I will of course occasionally check again on FangOnline if there's any news on this project. Besides, there are much larger provinces than Chiang Mai which could have parts split off to form a new provinces much easier, for example Nakhon Ratchasima.

Panda license plate

Announced yesterday were two new car license plate backgrounds, one for Chiang Mai province and one for Nakhon Ratchasima. Both provinces had a picture license plate before.

The most interesting is the one for Chiang Mai. Sadly the 2004 announcement of the original design does not contain the graphic, but on Wikipedia it has a photo of one. The new graphic now features three instead of two Pandas, of course referring to the birth of the Panda baby in May which created a real Panda hype in Thailand, now even a TV channel completely devoted to that Panda. Also added to the plate design was the city wall, not present in the previous version, whereas the painted umbrellas were already present in 2004.

A funny note showing the quality of journalism in Thailand - via ThaiPhotoBlogs I found a photo from the tabloid newspaper DailyXpress, which allegedly shows an official showing the new license plate. But comparing it with the one show above it is obvious that the official shows the old version with only two Pandas.

For Nakhon Ratchasima previously the graphic only showed Phimai temple, which in the now announced version was made smaller and supplemented with some hills (probably those of Khao Yai national park) and the Chumphon gate (ประตูชุมพล) in Nakhon Ratchasima city.

These colorful license plates are only available for plates sold at a public auction, featuring auspicious numbers or letter combinations. For a report on such an auction, Phuket Gazette wrote on the one held in September.

The Administrative and Political Structure of Chiang Mai Province

On August 12 2008 Dr. Tanet Charoenmuang (ธเนศวร์ เจริญเมือง held a talk at the Informal Northern Thai Group (INTG) on the administrative structure of Chiang Mai province. A bit late they now added a summary of this talk on their website. In fact, it was this talk which made me notice this INTG, as I stumbled on the then scheduled talk while researching about Dr. Tanets book "Thailand - a late decentralizing country". I still don't have the book however, still hesitate to buy it at the only Internet bookstore with a 50% surcharge for shipping.

The Informal Northern Thai Group is a group of mostly foreigners in Chiang Mai, who regularly convene for invited talk on various Thai topics. It is no formal club or foundation, in fact it was one before but was closed in 1975 due to various reasons like time constraints of the original panel members. They are now doing a monthly informal meeting with an invited talk, by now already over 300 talks had been held. If I were living in Chiang Mai, I would probably be a regular guest at these meetings, especially the quite unusual special topics make it very interesting.

Back to the actual talk, which coincides a lot with the topics covered in the book. As the book comprises essays and papers written by Dr. Tanet over the past two decades on the topics, it seems that the summary refers to things which had changed long time already - so it is more a summary of the book than of the talk itself. For example in the decentralization strategy the following points are listed

1. To hold governors’ elections, starting in major provinces and later proceeding to all provinces.
2. To abolish the PAO because it overlaps with the Tambon Council.
3. To replace the council system of Municipality with a strong executive system in which both the mayor and councilors are directly elected by the people.
4. To abolish the Sukapiban system and replace it with the strong executive system of Municipality.
5. To set up a full-fledged local government agency in each Tambon. The people should decide if they prefer the council form, committee form or the strong executive form of government.
6. To oppose the Interior Ministry’s plan to maintain the council form of municipal system.
7. To maintain the regional administrative system for the present and gradually transfer government officials under it to operate under the authority of local government agencies.

The Sukhaphiban were already abolished in 1999, the "local government agency in each Tambon" has been created 1996-1999 with the creation of the TAO. Also, the municipal mayors and councilors are now directly elected. However, the first two points are still unchanged, the province governors are still appointed by the Ministry of Interior, the the PAO with their overlapping responsibilities with the TAO are still in place.

New Chiang Mai district approved by cabinet

In yesterday's cabinet meeting the proposal of creating the new district Galyani Vadhana in Chiang Mai province was approved, so the Ministry of Interior can now continue to set up the new district. The date the district will officially come into existence is not given yet.

The short article of The Nation does not give as much background.

The Cabinet Tuesday approved the establishment of a new district in Chiang Mai to honour late Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana.
The new district was named Galyani Vadhana to honour the princess.
The new district has 647.58 square kilometres of area and 10,561 populations.

With more than ten thousand populations it must be a quite crowded district, but thats obviously just broken grammar. That they omit the fact that the name was not chosen by cabinet made a blogger suspect a political angle by this name selection honoring a royal in the pro-Thaksin north of Thailand.

Therefore I list the whole text from the cabinet meeting transcript.

คณะรัฐมนตรีอนุมัติหลักการร่างพระราชกฤษฎีกาตั้งอำเภอกัลยาณิวัฒนา พ.ศ. .... ตามที่กระทรวง มหาดไทยเสนอ และให้ส่งสำนักงานคณะกรรมการกฤษฎีกาตรวจพิจารณา แล้วดำเนินการต่อไปได้
ข้อเท็จจริง
กระทรวงมหาดไทยเสนอว่า
1. คณะรัฐมนตรีได้มีมติ (2 ธันวาคม 2551) เห็นชอบในหลักการการจัดตั้งอำเภอวัดจันทร์เฉลิมพระเกียรติ ของจังหวัดเชียงใหม่ เป็นกรณีพิเศษ เพื่อเทิดพระเกียรติสมเด็จพระเจ้าพี่นางเธอ เจ้าฟ้ากัลยาณิวัฒนา กรมหลวงนราธิวาสราชนครินทร์ และให้กระทรวงมหาดไทยรับไปดำเนินการในรายละเอียดต่าง ๆ ตามขั้นตอนต่อไป
2. โดยที่ตำบลบ้านจันทร์ ตำบลแม่แดด และตำบลแจ่มหลวง อำเภอแม่แจ่ม จังหวัดเชียงใหม่ มีท้องที่กว้างขวาง มีชุมชนและชุมนุมการค้า มีสภาพเจริญขึ้น สมควรแยกตำบลดังกล่าวออกจากอำเภอแม่แจ่ม จังหวัดเชียงใหม่ และรวมตั้งขึ้นเป็นอำเภอกัลยาณิวัฒนา จังหวัดเชียงใหม่ ตั้งอยู่ทางทิศตะวันตกเฉียงเหนือของจังหวัดเชียงใหม่ สภาพพื้นที่โดยทั่วไปเป็นป่าและมีภูเขาสูงชันล้อมรอบ มีเนื้อที่ประมาณ 647.58 ตารางกิโลเมตร จำนวนประชากร 10,561 คน ซึ่งได้จัดเตรียมสถานที่ที่จะใช้ในการก่อสร้างที่ว่าการอำเภอ หอประชุม และบ้านพักข้าราชการไว้เรียบร้อยแล้ว
3. ได้ขอให้สำนักเลขาธิการคณะรัฐมนตรีนำความกราบบังคมทูลพระกรุณาขอพระราชทานชื่ออำเภอดังกล่าวแล้ว ซึ่งได้ทรงพระกรุณาโปรดเกล้าฯ พระราชทานชื่ออำเภอดังกล่าวว่า “อำเภอกัลยาณิวัฒนา” ตั้งแต่วันที่ 7 กรกฎาคม 2552
สาระสำคัญของร่างพระราชกฤษฎีกา
ให้แยกตำบลบ้านจันทร์ ตำบลแม่แดด และตำบลแจ่มหลวง ออกจากอำเภอแม่แจ่ม จังหวัดเชียงใหม่ รวมตั้งเป็นอำเภอกัลยาณิวัฒนา จังหวัดเชียงใหม่

The transcript mostly just lists the facts for the district creation:
1. that on December 2 2008 the cabinet gave the Ministry of Interior the go ahead to set up the district as a special case under the district creation rules since the normal criteria for a new district are not met.
2. that the three subdistricts Ban Chan, Mae Daet and Chaem Luang should be split off from Mae Chaem to form new district Galyani Vadhana. The new district is in the northwest of Chiang Mai province, mostly forests and hills, covering an area of 647.58 km² and a population of 10,561. Facilities to construct the district office and to house officials are already prepared.
3. HM the King has bestowed the name Galyani Vadhana on July 7
and then in one sentence states that the district creation is approved.

Mayor elections in Chiang Mai

Courts disqualifying politicians becomes quite a regular thing in Thailand, not only members of parliament, senators or whole parties are disqualified in Bangkok, also local government leaders now often get removed from office in that way. Of those reported here it was the governor of Bangkok who resigned just after his re-election and before court could issue such a demand or the PAO chairman in Surat Thani who then stumbled upwards to become a member of parliament.

Another one I just noticed today was the mayor of Chiang Mai city municipality (เทศบาลนครเชียงใหม่) when reading the results of the election help on October 4. The previous mayor, Duantemduang na Chiang Mai, had to resign after in April a court ruled that she wasn't eligible for election in 2007 because she did not reside long enough in the city. Actually, she did reside there, but the court interpreted the law in such a way that she was required to own a house, the tax receipts were not enough to proof her residence. After some confusion the new elections were finally held last Sunday, and Duantemduang did run again for the post - but not successfully, she only got on 3rd position with just 11.8% of the valid non-abstain votes. The official results as of October 6 are as follows:

No	Name		Votes
1	ร้อยเอกหญิงเดือนเต็มดวง ณ เชียงใหม่	Duantemduang na Chiang Mai	6958	11.8%
2	นายทัศนัย บูรณุปกรณ์	Tassanai Buranupakorn	24384	41.4%
3	นายเพทาย เตโชฬาร	Petai Techolan	1747	3.0%
4	นายวัลลภ แซ่เตี๋ยว	Wanlop Saetiao	5465	9.3%
5	นายวิชัย วงศ์ไชย	Wichai Wongchai	1354	2.3%
6	นายพรชัย จิตรนวเสถียร	Phonchai Chitnawasathian	5524	9.4%
7	นางวิภาวัลย์ วรพุฒิพงค์	Wipawan Woraputthipong	13197	22.4%
8	นางอารีย์ อุดมศิริธำรง	Ari Udomsirithamrong	61	0.1%
9	นายบารมี พจนามธุรส	Barami Photchana	54	0.1%
10	นายเทพโยธินฐ ไชยรัตน์	Thepyothin Chairat	149	0.3%

New emblem of San Pu Loei

When I wrote about the emblem of the TAO San Pu Loei last year, I already mentioned that they need to change the emblem because it was just recently upgraded to a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลสันปูเลย) then. The old emblem did feature the Thai letters อบต as the Thai abbreviation for Subdistrict Administrative Organization, thus wasn't applicable anymore for the subdistrict municipality.

Now the municipality has created a new website at the new URL www.sanpulei.go.th, it also includes an image of the new emblem, and though at a much smaller resolution than the TAO emblem I could create a vector graphic from it to finally update that old posting.

Sadly the website has no description of the emblem, so I don't know what is the meaning of the elements displayed in it, especially the central element which I think is supposed to be a diamond. But quite clearly one can see that this emblem also uses three calligraphic Thai letters, this time ส (So Suea), ป (Po Pla) and ล (Lo Ling) - the starting consonants in each syllable of San Pu Loei (สันปูเลย). So in case the municipality ever gets another upgrade they don't need to change the emblem itself, only the name written in the outer circle.

878th district to be named "Galyani Vadhana"

When I reported on the planned new district in Chiang Mai province, the name was still listed as "Wat Chan district" (อำเภอวัดจันทร์) in most sources, but the idea of naming it in honor of the Princess Galyani Vadhana, sister of HM the King and deceased January 2nd 2008 was already in discussion.

Today, in the news section of the website of the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) it has the first really official confirmation that the district is about to be created soon, and it now also has the name fixed. That news titled "อำเภอกัลยาณิวัฒนา อำเภอที่ 878 (Galyani Vadhana district, district number 878) states that on July 7 HM the King bestowed this name to the district to be established.

The article however does not say when the district will actually get created, but now the name is set it cannot take that long anymore. The case will be presented by the Ministry of Interior to the cabinet for discussion, and after approval the royal decree will be issued.

One thing I still need to know is what will be the recommended English spelling of this district. Galyani Vadhana is the spelling used normally for the Princess, however the geographical entities normally follow the RTGS transcription scheme, which then would be "Kanyani Watthana". The only other similar case, the district Vibhavadi in Surat Thani also named after a member of the Royal family, does not follow RTGS either, because it then would be spelled Wiphawadi. So my guess is the recommended spelling will be "Galyani Vadhana" just like the one used for the Princess herself.

New district in Chiang Mai to be established soon

When I looked through the RCode list I found four codes already assigned to minor disticts in Chiang Mai which were not yet created. At first I thought these are district once planned but than scrapped, but just to confirm I picked one of the names to Google to verify - and did the lucky pick because that one seems to be one which is about to created in the near future - though I haven't yet found any fixed date for the official creation.

The code 5026 is listed to belong to กิ่งอำเภอวัดจันทร์ (minor district Wat Chan), and is supposed to cover the subdistrict Ban Chan (ตำบลบ้านจันทร์), Mae Daet (ตำบลแม่แดด) and Chaem Luang (ตำบลแจ่มหลวง) of Mae Chaem district. The name seems to be not yet finalized, as I also find it as อำเภอวัดจันทร์เฉลิมพระเกียรติ (Wat Chan Chaloem Phra Kiat) or just อำเภอเฉลิมพระเกียรติ (Chaloem Phra Kiat). The latest of the news reports I found are from January this year, however the whole project has started quite long ago - Chiang Mai News had a report which lists the district history back till 1993.

Another news clipping suggests even more names - อำเภอกัลยาณิวัฒนา (Kanyani Watthana), อำเภอราชนครินทร์ (Rat Nokrin) or อำเภอกัลยาณมิตราจารย์ (Kanyani Mitrachan), all in honor of the Galyani Vadhana, the late sister of HM the King.

I am also not sure whether this new district will be created as a minor district (King Amphoe, กิ่งอำเภอ) like it is listed in the RCode list, or directly as a full district in line with the 2007 upgrade of all minor districts. Still quite a lot of questions and probably still a bit time to research before the creation get imminent, but now I am forewarned I doubt it will be same as for the last new district of Thailand which I only heard from about a year after it was created.

For a more entertaining link, On the road Wat Chan - Kun Chang Kian is a great photo album of views on the area which will make up the new district. And to give due credit, the map above is based on the new vector maps hdamm is creating for Wikipedia, replacing the more plain maps I created years ago.

Municipal decisions for May 6 2009

On May 6 there were two board meetings, both dealing with municipality upgrades. In morning it was a board one which was continued in afternoon by board two. Normally only the board two deals with the municipality upgrades and similar decisions.

Meeting number 5 of board one from May 6 2009 with three TAO upgraded to subdistrict municipalities.

• Huai Tuekchu (เทศบาลตำบลห้วยตึ๊กชู), Phu Sing district, Sisaket province, effective July 31 2009. The TAO was created in 1997, covers 123 km², 18 villages and 11,306 citizen.
• Samrong (เทศบาลตำบลสำโรง), Samrong district, Ubon Ratchathani province, effective August 1 2009. The TAO was created in 1997, covers 38 km², 12 villages and 7,258 citizen.
• Bueng Charoen (เทศบาลตำบลบึงเจริญ), Ban Kruat district, Buriram province, effective August 1 2009. The TAO was created in 1996, covers 64.07 km², 13 villages and 6,603 citizen.

Meeting number 4 of board two from May 6 2009 with five TAO upgraded to subdistrict municipalities.

• Nong Bua Yai (เทศบาลตำบลหนองบัวใหญ่), Chatturat district, Chaiyaphum province, effective on the day of announcement. The TAO was created in 1996, covers 52 km², 10 villages and 7,405 citizen.
• Chi Long (เทศบาลตำบลชีลอง), Mueang Chaiyaphum district, Chaiyaphum province, effective on the day of announcement. The TAO was created in 1996, covers 43.22 km², 17 villages and 10,712 citizen.
• Mueang Len (เทศบาลตำบลเมืองเล็น), San Sai district, Chiang Mai province, effective on the day of announcement. The TAO was created in 1997, covers 9.33 km², 5 villages and 2,531 citizen.
• Bang Mak (เทศบาลตำบลบางหมาก), Mueang Chumphon district, Chumphon province, effective on the day of announcement. The TAO was created in 1995, covers 50 km², 12 villages and 6,951 citizen.
• Don Sai (เทศบาลตำบลดอนทราย), Pak Phayun district, Phatthalung province, effective on the day of announcement. The TAO was created in 1997, covers 20 km², 6 villages and 2,372 citizen.

I am not sure which date is actually meant by "และประสงค์จัดตั้งเป็นเทศบาลตำบล ตั้งแต่วันประกาศเป็นต้นไป" - is it the date of the meeting, the one when the announcement will be published in the Royal Gazette, or announced internally by the Ministry of Interior? All of the above TAO councils have their term end on July 30 2009.

Tambon websites with English sections

As I am often checking Google for the keyword "tambon", and thanks to the "search wiki" easily filtering out all those Wikipedia clones and hotel adverts, at about 40th position the first websites of Tambon administrative organizations (TAO) and subdistrict municipalities (thesaban tambon) show up. The current top ten (searching in English) are

• Suthep (เทศบาลตำบลสุเทพ), Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai
  
• Yang Noeng (เทศบาลตำบลยางเนิ้ง), Saraphi, Chiang Mai
  
• San Klang (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลสันกลาง), San Pa Tong, Chiang Mai
  
• San Pu Loei (เทศบาลตําบลสันปูเลย), Doi Saket, Chiang Mai
  
• Mae Hoi Ngoen (องค์การบริหารส่วนตําบลแม่ฮ้อยเงิน), Doi Saket, Chiang Mai
  
• Ban Thi (เทศบาลตำบลบ้านธิ), Ban Thi, Lamphun
  
• Mae La Noi (องค์การบริหารส่วนตําบลแม่ลาน้อย), Mae La Noi, Mae Hong Son
  
• Talat Yai (องค์การบริหารส่วนตําบลตลาดใหญ่), Doi Saket, Chiang Mai
  
• Mae Khue (องค์การบริหารส่วนตําบลแม่คือ), Doi Saket, Chiang Mai
  
• Makhun Wan (องค์การบริหารส่วนตําบลมะขุนหวาน), San Pa Tong, Chiang Mai
  

There are two things which are notable on this list. The first thing is quite obvious - most of these websites are within the province Chiang Mai. When looking at the websites themselves, for most the basic design is very similar, only the photos and the textual content exchanged. And the English is also quite good. As most show in the footer "Designed and developed by www.click2solutions.com I suppose all these websites were created as a joint effort, all these local governments jointly hiring the web design company, who also did the translations. And good to see that at least for Chiang Mai they recognized that English text is also a valuable extension, especially for tourists who want to know more about the places they are about to visit. And of course also for me who still has a hard time reading the Thai only websites.

Tambon area clarification in Saraphi, Chiang Mai

Published today was an area clarification for the subdistrict (Tambon) San Sai (ตำบลสันทราย), Saraphi district, Chiang Mai province. The announcement was published in Volume 125, Issue พิเศษ 197 ง on page 21 to 23, signed on November 3 and published on December 30. Note sure if there will be anything published tomorrow, so this is likely the last announcement to be mentioned here for this year.

The only thing I can use from this announcement for my data is the village list included, giving the names of the 12 villages as follows. However actually I could have taken that list also from the website of the TAO San Sai.

หมู่ที่ ๑ บ้านสันทรายท่าช้าง
หมู่ที่ ๒ บ้านป่าสา
หมู่ที่ ๓ บ้านท่าสองแคว
หมู่ที่ ๔ บ้านศรีดอนชัย
หมู่ที่ ๕ บ้านท่ามะขาม
หมู่ที่ ๖ บ้านหนองแบน
หมู่ที่ ๗ บ้านปิงน้อยหลวง
หมู่ที่ ๘ บ้านปิงน้อย
หมู่ที่ ๙ บ้านปากคลอง
หมู่ที่ ๑๐ บ้านสันทรายมหาวงค์
หมู่ที่ ๑๑ บ้านล้องปู่หม่น
หมู่ที่ ๑๒ บ้านต้นผึ้ง

Emblem of TAO San Pu Loei, Doi Saket, Chiang Mai

By same random googleing I came across the website of the subdistrict municipality San Pu Loei (เทศบาลตําบลสันปูเลย) in Doi Saket district, Chiang Mai. While the website has nothing special - only a small part is available in English, but at least it has an English section, normally the websites of the municipalities or TAO are exclusively in Thai.

But what caught my attention was the emblem of the municipality, which unlike most municipal emblems does not show a geographic or historic speciality of the town, but a rather simple graphic. As it is such a simple design, I played with inkscape a bit and made it into a vector graphic, and it came quite close to the one seen on the website.

The emblem shows two hands holding a circle with the three 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). The text in the top arc is องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลสันปูเลย - TAO San Pu Loei, and in the bottom arc the name of district and province. Though most won't notice, similar calligraphic Thai letters are very commonly seen in Thailand - several of the Royal emblems have the letters Pho Po Ro in middle, the initials of HM the King.

But the work to redraw that emblem was rather in vain, because the TAO has already been upgraded to a subdistrict municipality this summer, and therefore they need to create a new emblem - not only the text in the upper half has to change, but the three letters in the middle have to change. That won't be that easy, as there's no common abbreviation for thesaban tambon (subdistrict municipality), though I rarely have seen ต.ต. used for it. So at least for the center of the emblem they have to come up with a completely new design.