RCode list in detail

While working through the municipality geocodes in the new code file named RCode, I noticed some strange or interesting cases worth noting.

The list includes a code for the town Aranyaprathet (เทศบาลเมืองอรัญญประเทศ) in the province Prachinburi (2597) marked as obsolete with an asterisk, and another one in Sa Kaeo (2798). Therefore the system of municipality codes starting with 99 must have been adopted before 1993 already, the year when Sa Kaeo province was established. The capital towns for the other provinces created in 1993 were only sanitary districts which had no codes, so Aranyaprathet is the only proof for this dating.

In Udon Thani, there are two subdistrict municipalities named Nong Phai (เทศบาลตำบลหนองไผ่), one in Mueang Udon hani district and one in Nong Han district. The table does not include the districts but only gives the names and the numbers, so it's not possible to identify which one got the 4167 and which one the 4168.

Now to the real strange case. In Lopburi the code 1687, marked as obsolete or inactive by the asterisk, refers to the subdistrict municipality Nong Muang (เทศบาลตำบลหนองม่วง). However I suspect it does not refer to the former sanitary district upgraded in 1999, as that already has the code 1693, but instead to the TAO Nong Muang (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลหนองม่วง). Maybe it was planned to upgraded that one, but in fact it never was till today.

In Roi Et it even has three names showing up twice, and here the explanation with the TAO eponymous with the municipality does not work. The three cases are:

• At Samat (เทศบาลตำบลอาจสามารถ) - the real one has the code 4583, the asterisked duplicate one the 4582. This still could also refer to the TAO At Samat (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลอาจสามารถ) however.
• Dong Daeng (เทศบาลตำบลดงแดง) - the real one has the code 4573, the asterisked duplicate one the 4567. This municipality was upgraded from a TAO in 2008, so there is no second one entity Dong Daeng.
• Khok Lam (เทศบาลตำบลโคกล่าม) - the real one has the code 4574, the asterisked duplicate one the 4568. Same as for Dong Daeng, it was upgraded from a TAO in 2008.

An very odd code is the number 1099 which refers to สำนักทะเบียนกลาง, the central register, which corresponds to no local or central administrative territorial entity.

As already mentioned, for Nakhon Ratchasima all of the possible codes are already used, and there still a lot of TAO upgraded in 2008 which have no number assigned. So they must create a new coding scheme for the municipalities.

And finally, the list includes the Sakha Tambon (something I still have no idea about) as well as the planned new districts I found earlier, only those for Chiang Mai I did not include into my lists before. And interestingly, these four district names in Chiang Mai made me discover some other interesting new stuff, which will be topic of a new posting.

Planned new districts?

When I was searching for information on Sakha Tambon (สาขาตำบล), I run across a set of lists with the geocodes at the website of the Thai Rak Thai party. That website is now offline as the party was dissolved earlier this year, but I of course mirrored those data. Anyway, looking at the one for Surat Thani, I noticed it included two minor districts (King Amphoe) which are not existing:

8420	ท่าโรงช้าง	Tha Rong Chang
8421	บางสวรรค์	Bang Sawan

Altogether there were 84 such not yet existing minor districts which already have a geocode assigned. And these geocodes must be authentic, because for Khon Kaen it listed three new minor districts, and the recently created Wiang Kao got the geocode 4029, not 4026 as one would expect for the 26th district of Khon Kaen.