Remembering Saisith

While looking for more information on the book Provincial Administration and Local Government in Thailand, written in 1968 by William A. Sommers, instead of a table of contents or a recension Google instead found me an essay written by Mr. Sommers in the electronic journal American Diplomacy last month. As a municipal administrator Mr. Sommers worked as an adviser in several countries, including 1963 to 1969 in Thailand.

In the essay titled Remembering Saisith he recalls the meetings with Saisith Pornkaew (สายสิทธิ พรแก้ว). In 1966 on a field trip with the Director General of the Department of Locak Administration to Ubon Ratchathani, Mr. Sommers suggested his student Saisith as being the best candidate to become new district officer of Loeng Nok Tha. The incumbent was seriously wounded in an attack by insurgents and a replacement was needed.

For Saisith this was the beginning of a career in provincial administration, he later was province governor in Ubon Ratchathani, Sakon Nakhon, Chainat, Nan and Samut Prakan - at least those are the positions I could find in the governor lists I have. If I interpret this entry in the library catalog of the Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, it is the memorial book published on his cremation in 2006.

Village headman award

Published on October 6 was an announcement by the Department of provincial administration (DOPA) on an award for the subdistrict headmen, village headmen and assistant village headmen. A total of 58 officials from 20 provinces did get awarded for the month of September.

As the the title of the announcement already suggests, this award is given out several times in the year, and I have found three further ones from this year - in February 35 officials from 14 provinces, in March/April 114 officials in 23 province, and in May 40 officials from 17 provinces.

The actual list of the awardees for this time is in a separate PDF file, and since it is a scan of a document I cannot copy and paste its contents easily. So I only list the provinces which have an awardee this time - Kanchanaburi, Chanthaburi, Chiang Rai, Tak, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Narathiwat, Nan, Phang Nga, Phetchaburi, Phrae, Roi Et, Ratchaburi, Rayong, Lopburi, Lamphun, Samut Songkhram, Sa Kaeo, Suphanburi, Surat Thani and Surin.

In order to get an idea what were the achievements which made these officials receive the award, I have tried to looked into the one official from Surat Thani. Phisan Klangrak (นายพิศาล กลางรักษ์), village headman of Ban Huai Rian (บ้านห้วยเรียน), village 6 of Sawait subdistrict, Tha Chang district was awarded with the following rationale

ร่วมกับเจ้าหน้าที่ตำรวจ สภ.เสรียด ได้นำหมายศาลไปขอตรวจค้นบ้านต้องสงสัยพบของกลาง ปืนลูกชองชี่งมีไว้ในครอบครองโดยผิดกฏหนาย

Together with police officer of Sawiat station brought search warrants to find illegal firearms

Not sure if I typed and translated it completely right, but the meaning should be clear.

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.

Subdistrict boundary definitions

On Friday, a total of five announcements were published which each contain the definitions of the boundaries of one or more subdistricts, and most interesting for my XMLs also a list of the administrative villages in these subdistricts.

• Mueang Kalasin district, Kalasin (Gazette)
  
  • Phu Din subdistrict (ตำบลภูดิน), 14 villages
• Mueang Chiang Rai district, Chiang Rai (Gazette)
  
  • Mae Yao subdistrict (ตำบลแม่ยาว), 18 villages
• Tha Wung district, Lopburi (Gazette)
  
  • Bang Nga subdistrict (ตำบลบางงา¹), 13 villages
• Nam Yuen district, Ubon Ratchathani (Gazette)
  
  • Kao Kham subdistrict (ตำบลเก่าขาม), 13 villages
  • Song subdistrict (ตำบลโซง), 11 villages
• Nam Khun district, Ubon Ratchathani (Gazette)
  
  • Khilek subdistrict (ตำบลขี้เหล็ก), 13 villages
  • Ta Kao subdistrict (ตำบลตาเกา), 15 villages

¹ The link points to their website, but somehow they managed to make it completely 404. The Google cache still has a little bit of its former contents.

Districts with only municipalities

Before the recent massive upgrades of subdistrict administrative organizations (TAO) to municipalities, there were only very few districts which only had municipalities and no TAO at all, interesting both island districts.

• Ko Samui, Surat Thani - sanitary district upgraded in 1999, sanitary district covered whole district since 1973 when Ko Pha Ngan was split off.
• Ko Sichang, Chonburi, since 2004 when TAO Tha Thewawong (ท่าเทววงษ์) was merged into municipality.
  

But as since 2007 a lot of the TAO get upgraded to municipalities, the number of such districts with only municipalities increased increased significantly as well. All of them just "lost" their last TAO this year, and interestingly the province Lampang has three of its southern district in this group.

• Nong Sung, Mukdahan, with five subdistrict municipalities.
• Nong Hin, Roi Et, with four subdistrict municipalities.
• Thoen, Lampang, with eight subdistrict municipalities.
• Mae Phrik, Lampang, with four subdistrict municipalities.
• Soem Ngam, Lampang, with five subdistrict municipalities.
• Srinagarindra, Phatthalung, with four subdistrict municipalities.
• Mueang Suang, Roi Et, with four subdistrict municipalities.

Municipal decisions from July 21 2009

Meeting number 29 from July 21 2009 with one TAO and municipality changing their area.

• TAO Bueng Khong Long (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลบึงโขงหลง), Bueng Khong Long district, Nong Khai province, transferring four administrative villages to the subdistrict municipality Bueng Khong Long (เทศบาลตำบลบึงโขงหลง). The villages are
  
  • Village 9 - Ban Sa Kaeo (หมู่ที่ ๙ บ้านสระแก้ว)
  • Village 11 - Ban Non Sawang (หมู่ที่ ๑๑ บ้านโนนสว่าง)
  • Village 12 - Ban Bueng Khong Long (หมู่ที่ ๑๒ บ้านบึงโขงหลง)
  • Village 17 - Ban Sai Thong (หมู่ที่ ๑๗ บ้านทรายทอง)

My Thai administrative entities spreadsheet

Since I linked my spreadsheet in the sidebar of this blog it gets a fair amount of downloads, but I might give it a bit more boost by actively promoting it, as well as answer the most common question around it.

The spreadsheet is a ODS file, the file format used by OpenOffice. Microsoft started to support it with Office 2007 Service Pack 2, for older versions one have to install a plugin. But due to the common demand I have added the Excel (XLS) version as well, but that will get updated much less regularly.

I started with this spreadsheet many years ago to collect the various data on the Thai provinces while slowly creating all the articles on Wikipedia. It has since grown a lot, from just two sheets with the provinces and the provinces sorted by population, area and population density, to now 24 sheets. I am only listing the most important ones here, so if you are looking for any of the following information on all the entities you have now found what you were looking for.

• Districts (Amphoe, อำเภอ) - Population in census 1990 and 2000, area, date of creation, geocode in TIS1099, Census 1990 and 2000, (main) Postal code
• Subdistricts (Tambon, ตำบล) - date of creation and upgrade (from Royal Gazette), geocode in TIS1099, subdistricts from which it was split off
• Municipalities (Thesaban, เทศบาล) - dates of creation or upgrade for all five municipal levels (TAO, Sukhaphiban, Thesaban Tambon, Thesaban Mueang, Thesaban Nakhon), geocodes both by DOLA and TIS1099
• TAO (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบล) - date of creation, DOLA code, corresponding Tambon; list includes all the former TAO either abolished or upgraded to municipalities as well

The other sheets contain sometimes incomplete data, like the abolished local government units, renaming of entities, strange geocodes in the DOPA geocode list, the Sakha Tambon (still don't know what these were in fact), as well as a few source tables like the full postcodes with all exceptions. Some of these auxiliary sheets I haven't updated in the spreadsheet anymore once I started with using the XMLs of my coding project, for example the many name and spelling changes.