Preliminary census results

The National Statistics Office has published the first preliminary results of the 2010 census, however sadly only in a short news release so far. Thus as of September 1st 2010, Thailand has

• a total population of 65.4 million, 50.9% or 33.3 million are female and 49.1% or 32.1 million (49.1%) male. This makes it the 4th populous country in South East Asia.
  
• The population growth rate in the last decade was just 0.77%, compared to 2.70% in the 1960s and 1.05% in the 1990s.
  
• The number of households is 20.3 million, thus an average household size of 3.2 persons - compared with 3.9 in 2000.
  
• The household size in the regions differs, the South has 3.54 persons, the Northeast 3.53, the North 3.1, the Central area 3.0 and Bangkok just 2.9 persons.
  
• The population density is 127.5 per km², compared with 118.1 per km² in 2000.
  
• The population density in Bangkok is 4028.9 per km², which has shrunk in the last decade - in 2000 it still was 5258.6 per km².
  
• The provinces with the highest population density are (in this order) Bangkok, Samut Prakan, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Phuket, Samut Sakhon, Samut Songkhram, Chon Buri, Nakhon Pathom and Ayutthaya.
  

I wasn't able to find any of the raw preliminary data, for the 2000 census there were PDFs for each province with these data.

TAO offices in Nakhon Phanom on youtube

I was looking for the website of one of the TAO in Mueang Nakhon Phanom district, a found the blog mueangnakhonphanom - which however does not look like a real blog, but an attempt to use blogspot as free webspace provider. But nevertheless, the many photos there include some of the TAO offices, and also for some subdistricts it includes village lists.

Yet the even more interesting part was found in the sidebar - videos featuring the TAO offices within the district. The one embedded here is from Kurukhu (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลกุรุคุ).



As leknkp uploaded many videos, I have collected those on the TAO offices in a playlist, 23 videos including a few from other districts. I haven't yet seen them all in detail, which I really need to do - for example the video on At Samat shows a table with the past TAO chairmen and mayors as well as chairmen of the TAO council - data which I could not find on the website of the TAO. And I also want to find the offices in Google Earth, while it is easy to recognize the building with the help of the video, the difficult part is to know where to look - sadly I cannot find any geotags within the videos.

Another interesting video by leknkp are an interview with a TAO mayor in Na Kae district, and I am sure there are more I haven't spotted yet.

Corruption in TAO offices

The Nation had a very interesting article recently titled Tambon chief backs more roles for local people, which is kind of an interview with Bamrung Kayotha (บำรุง คะโยธา), TAO mayor of Sai Na Wang (and not Saphan Wah as claimed by The Nation) in Kalasin province.

Corruption after recent TAO elections involved using the budget to construct an asphalt road on top of a smooth reinforced concrete road only 12 months after it was built so that these representatives would get a cut from the construction firm. There is also corruption in the deals for local school milk, with about Bt10 satang per pack being siphoned off to the TAO chief. Another area of corruption is the purchase of a garbage truck, which is not really needed for a small community.

Another point he raises is something I also noticed previously

Many TAOs also like to have an elaborate office to boost the ego of the TAO chief, Bamrung said. Corruption is encouraged by undertaking expensive construction work, he said, while adding that his TAO office is arguably the most modest in the Kingdom, being just a one-storey wooden structure.

District officer reshuffle in the making

Apparently in preparation for the forthcoming national elections, the Ministry of Interior is hastening the next district officer reshuffle. As Bangkok Post reports

The Interior Ministry's move to hasten the selection of 95 district chiefs before the election will help Bhumjaithai Party at the polls, observers say.
District chiefs play a key role in elections and could help swing things the party's way, a ministry source said. The ministry is supervised by Bhumjaithai.
The Election Commission assigns district chiefs as election directors in their districts.
[...]
The list of the district chiefs is now expected to be endorsed by the end of the month.

The last district officer transfer I know about was in January 2010. I don't know why there is no fixed date for this kind of transfer, unlike the province governors which are (normally) reshuffled effective October 1st.

Le gouvernement local en Thaïlande

The National Library of Australia has quite a good collection of books on the administration of Thailand, quite often I found that a book I thought interesting is available in there - too bad that means on the other side of the globe for me. What is quite nice is that their catalog allows to subscribe to RSS feeds, so I now easily find whenever they acquire a new book in that section.

The latest new entry was a French language book "Le gouvernement local en Thaïlande" by Malai Huvanandana and John W. Ryan from 1958, published by UNESCO. Just for fun I fed that title and author into Google, and voilà, I not only found its entry at UNESCOs library, but there it even has a PDF with the full 28 page publication.

Only problem - I don't speak French. I can only grasp the general content by guessing those words which look similar to those I learned in Latin in school, and since it is a scanned PDF I cannot copy-and-paste it into Google Translate neither. On the first page it says "Traduit de l'anglais" (translated from English), but apparently and sadly the English original was never published. So I am quite limited in what I can extract out of this document.

By the way, the author Malai Huvanandana (มาลัย หุวะนันท์) is also an interesting person. In 1958 he was director of the Institute of Public Administration at the Thammasat University (now part of the National Institute of Development Administration), 1972-73 he was Deputy Minister of Interior.

New district museum videos

Brochures from the district museums

Some months ago I wrote about two videos on the district museums in Bangkok which I found in youtube. As I rarely use youtube I did not notice that happyfamilyday uploaded many more videos on museums in the meantime, and also several new videos featuring the district museums.

To collect them in one place I have created a playlist within youtube, currently containing eight videos.

• Phra Khanong (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตพระโขนง) [Video]
• Rat Burana (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตราษฎร์บูรณะ) [Video]
• Thawi Watthana (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตทวีวัฒนา) [Video]
• Lat Krabang (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตลาดกระบัง) [Video]
• Bang Rak (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตบางรัก) [Video]
• Chom Thong (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตจอมทอง) [Video]
• Nong Chok (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น หนองจอก) [Video]
• Bangkok Noi (พิพิธภัณฑ์ท้องถิ่น เขตบางกอกน้อย) [Video]

Of these eight, I have only visited two so far - Bangkok Noi and Bang Rak - as most of them are from the more outlying districts not that easy to reach by walking and public transport. So many ideas for trips to be made when I am in Bangkok again next month.

Montone Puket - Part I

When my reader Ian explored Phuket recently, one of the locals he talked with showed him a book with some historical texts on Phuket. That book was "Old Phuket", published in 1986 by the Siam Society. While long out of print, luckily my friend hdamm already had one copy which he borrowed me - a physical book is much more comfortable to read than the photos Ian did for me.

The book is in fact a reprint of several articles published in the Journal of the Siam Society 1905 and 1906. The article I will cite is titled Montone Puket (Siam) Malay Peninsula by the missionary John Carrington, which contains a nice description of the provinces within the Monthon Phuket, including a etymology of their names.

It does not lie within the purpose of this paper to discuss the ancient history of this Montone, but to write of it more as it is at the present time, and as observed by the writer during five tours through this region.
This is a portion of Siam, Malay Peninsula, the "Tanah Malayu", or Malay Land. At Kra, กระ, or Kraburee is is about 45 miles wide, and at a line through Junkceylon and Nakhon it is about 200 miles in width.
It will be in place here to name the provinces into which Puket Montone is divided. We begin with the most northerly one and name them on down in their order of location.
1. Ranong - ระนอง - formerly Ranong and Kra. Ranong is said to signify a place of much water; and indeed this is true in the rainy season.
2. Takuapa - ตะ กั่ว ป่า - the place, or wilderness, of lead; named thus, perhaps, because the first tin discovered there was supposed to be lead.
3. Phangnga - พังงา - formerly Takuathoong (lead field) and Phangnga. พังงา undoubtedly means, in this connection, very beautiful, as it will be seen that this province of great beauty - and not Elephant tusk, as some Siamese think.
4. Puket, or Thalang, or Junkceylon. It may be the word puket is the Malay word bukit for hill or mountain. I am not satisfied by this definition. This is a large island separated from the mainland by a very narrow passage of water, and lies south of Phannga. The main town is Tongka - thoongkha - ทุ่งคา, field of grass, or grass field.
5. Krabee - very incorrectly called Gerbee. The Siamese word is กระ บี่ meaning a sword. This is a good Siamese word for that weapon, a lower word being dap, ดาบ, the high word being พระ แสง.
6. Trang, formerly Trang and some other small states. Trang ตรัง is said to mean "adhere" or "joined to." The application I am at loss to discover at the present. It may be that this territory was acquired by the Siamese later than that adjoining it in the North or East, and so was called "joined", that is joined to what they already possessed. This is merely conjecture on my part, and I do not insist.