Number of administrative entities in the past

After I found the most up-to-date numbers of administrative entities at the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA), comparing them with the numbers in the past can show some trends, like the stop of district creation in 1997. I don't have many such data points yet, the most useful to show a larger trend are from two antiquarian books I bought recently. Also, in many cases only the central administrative entities are mentioned, while the municipalities are left out. So in the table below I also just list the district (Amphoe, subdistrict (Tambon) and village (Muban) numbers - the development of the province number was topic of an earlier post already. The minor districts are not always given, they might be included in the number of districts or might have been omitted completely.

Year	Districts	Minor districts	Subdistricts	Villages
2007	877	0	7,255	74,944
2002	795	81	7,255	72,577
2001	795	81	7,255	71,864
2000	795	81	7,255	69,866
1984	642		7,236	55,746
1969	578		5,138	45,661
1942	406		4,966

One trend is notable even from this relatively small sample - while the number of villages did rise continuously, the higher level numbers did not change since 1997. One reason may be the Asian financial crisis, or also the much stronger focus on local administrative entities like the TAO and municipalities, as you might have noticed from the many thesaban postings lately.

More data-points are of course welcome, especially older versions of the year-end DOPA statistics.

Ko Samui city status delayed

It was mentioned on the ThaiVisa forum quite some time ago, however Samui Express was a bit slow to put it up on their website. But now it is online - Surat governor rejects cityhood. According to that article the governor of Surat Thani province Vinai Baupradit has halted the plans of the upgrade to city status, claiming that the requirements aren't met yet.

Samui has also met the population and income requirements, as it has over 50,000 residents and its Bt10-billion annual income is past the required Bt400 million or more.

But strangely no word on the population density requirement, as far as I know the area also needs to have a population density of at least 3,000 per square kilometre to qualify for a city (same for the town status). For subdistrict municipalities this limit is at 1,500 per km² - but this is hardly ever reached in the recent upgrades of TAO to municipalities, which cover the whole subdistrict (tambon), not just the densely settled area which had made municipal separately from the rest of the subdistrict in the past. So maybe the density requirement was dropped recently.

Municipal decisions from January 11 2008

Meeting number 4 from January 11 2008 with six TAO upgraded to subdistrict municipalities.

• Thung Saeng Thong (เทศบาลตำบลทุ่งแสงทอง), Nang Rong district, Buriram province, effective February 28 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 19.20 km², 7 villages and 3,176 citizen.
• Krasae Sin (เทศบาลตำบลกระแสสินธุ์), Krasae Sin district, Songkhla province, effective February 28 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 25 km², 4 villages and 3,082 citizen.
• Nong Yuang (เทศบาลตำบลหนองยวง), Wiang Nong Long district, Lamphun province, effective February 29 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 17.56 km², 5 villages and 4,007 citizen.
• Ban Thum (เทศบาลตำบลบ้านทุ่ม), Mueang Khon Kaen district, Khon Kaen province, effective July 18 2008. The TAO was created in 1996, covers 54 km², 18 villages and 16,723 citizen.
• Wang Thong (เทศบาลตำบลวังทอง), Wang Sombun district, Sa Kaeo province, effective February 28 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 143.9 km², 17 villages and 13,000 citizen.
• Mae Pan (เทศบาลตำบลแม่ปาน), Long district, Phrae province, effective February 28 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 116 km², 7 villages and 3,129 citizen.

Thai standard 1099-2548

The Thai standard TIS 1099-2535 did only cover the provinces and assigned them two-digit geocodes. In 2005 a second version of the standard was issued, which also includes the districts (Amphoe) and subdistricts (Tambon), with the district having 4 digit and the subdistricts 6. Named "Province, amphur and tambon identification codes for data interchange", it is basically the same as the geocode list from the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA), which I have blogged about earlier. Interestingly it contains a few of the municipalities (thesaban) as well, with its geocodes being the same as I have found them earlier. But only very few of the municipalities are actually listed, I haven't checked in detail yet, but it looks like its only those which already existed before the 1999 upgrade of all the sanitary districts to municipalities. It also does not contain the district Wiang Kao, but that's hardly surprising as that was created in 2006, while the standard was written in 2005.

The standard was announced in the Royal Gazette on June 29 2006 in volume 123, issue 62 ง, page 32. The PDF includes the full list, altogether 122 pages.

Municipal decisions from January 18 2008

Meeting number 6 from January 18 2008 with six TAO upgraded to subdistrict municipalities.

• Takang (เทศบาลตำบลตะกาง), Mueang Trat district, Trat province, effective February 28 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 79.54 km², 6 villages and 2,478 citizen.
• Mae Chan (เทศบาลตำบลแม่จัน), Umphang district, Tak province, effective February 28 2008. The TAO was created 1999, covers 2,385 km², 12 villages and 11,047 citizen.
• Don Wai (เทศบาลตำบลดอนหวาย), Non Sung district, Nakhon Ratchasima province, effective February 28 2008. The TAO was created 1999, covers 20.49 km², 7 villages and 3,440 citizen.
• Wisit (เทศบาลตำบลวิศิษฐ์), Bueng Kan district, Nong Khai province, effective July 9 2008. The TAO was created 1996, covers 68.33 km², 13 villages and 6,688 citizen.
• Charim (เทศบาลตำบลจริม), Tha Pla district, Uttaradit province, effective July 1 2008. The TAO was created 1996, covers 126.70 km², 13 villages and 8,645 citizen.
• Khu Tao (เทศบาลตำบลคูเต่า), Hat Yai district, Songkhla province, effective January 16 2008. The TAO was created in 1996, covers 45.30 km², 10 villages and 10,656 citizen.

Gazette announcements with mistakes

The announcements in the Royal Gazette are written by humans, and humans make mistakes. Even in such an important publication like the official announcements in the Royal Gazette where the text is probably crosschecked before publications sometimes a mistake slips through, and later a second announcement with the correction has to be made. In most cases I have found so far (and there are not many) it was just a spelling mistake in one of the entity names, but I have one example where something more went wrong: The creation of the minor district Khok Charoen in Lopburi province out of the district Khok Samrong in 1987. The announcement is titled "ประกาศกระทรวงมหาดไทย เรื่อง แบ่งเขตท้องที่อำเภอโคกสำโรง จังหวัดลพบุรี ตั้งเป็นกิ่งอำเภอโคกสำโรง" - Royal Order of splitting area from Khok Charoen district to become minor district Khok Samrong. And also in the text of the announcement the names of the parent district and the new minor district are exchanged. That announcement was published on March 3rd, the correction came on May 26th. It was titled "แก้คำผิด ประกาศกระทรวงมหาดไทย เรื่อง แบ่งเขตท้องที่อำเภอโคกสำโรง จังหวัดลพบุรี ตั้งเป็นกิ่งอำเภอโคกเจริญ" - correction of Royal Order of splitting area from Khok Samrong district to become minor district Khok Charoen.

Municipal decisions from January 25 2008

Meeting number 8 from January 25 2008 with one TAO upgraded to a subdistrict municipality, and another municipality having its area changed.

• TAO Khok Sung, Phon Thong district, Roi Et province, became a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลโคกสูง) on February 28. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 33.50 km², 13 villages and 5,653 citizen.
• The subdistrict municipality Ko Sichang (เทศบาลตำบลเกาะสีชัง), Ko Sichang district, Chonburi province, had its area changed on January 25 2008. As I cannot read the text I don't know any more details. What is a bit odd is the fact that I thought the municipality already covered the whole district, at least all the area covered by the population statistics from DOPA.