Subdistrict reassignment in Uttaradit

Current area of Nam Pat district

hdamm and Potapt, Wikimedia Commons

Back in December I mentioned the forthcoming reassignment of the subdistrict Tha Faek in Uttaradit when it was approved by the cabinet. This change became effective on February 14 already following its announcement in the Royal Gazette on February 13, however I failed to report it on time here - I planned to have all the Wikipedia resources finished before, and only now realized that the Thai wikipedian Potapt already took over the biggest part, the update of the maps. As I already explained what's happening in December, I now focus on the coverage of this act in the Wikipedia universe.

While a few other Royal Gazette announcement were already transcribed for Wikisource, and some of them even translated into English - as government works these announcements are without copyright, so they are eligible to be stored at Wikisource - now I have tried to do this myself and thus created both the Thai and the English version of this announcement there. As I copied most of the legal phrases from other Thai law translations, my translation shouldn't be that bad.

The Wikipedia articles on the two affected districts Nam Pat and Tha Pla are updated in English, German and Thai, it remains to be seen how long it will take the obviously bot-created articles in Vietnamese and Bishnupriya Manipuri (one of the many languages of India) to be ever updated by a human being. I am quite skeptical such bot-created articles for topic totally unrelated to the main interests of the native speakers make any sense - for Vietnamese its at least an almost neighboring country, but doubt anyone speaking Bishnupriya Manipuri will ever be interested in a Thai district. Even the article on the subdistrict Tha Faek itself will probably be hardly ever read - even for Thai it seems this Tambon is hardly interesting, as the Thai Wikipedia still has no article on it. The TAO Tha Faek is on Wikidata as well, but has no article on any Wikipedia yet.

As I already linked the resonator pages for the districts above, created from the data in Wikidata, those already show a lot of information like the neighboring district, the population data including some historical, and of course the subdivisions including this change date and its reference. One quite basic information is still missing - there is still no datatype for giving the area, so I cannot be recorded yet that with this change the area of the two districts changed by 315 km², the area of Tha Faek subdistrict.

Last but not least there are the maps to show the location and extend of the districts. That Wikimedia Commons category contains both the maps I did 10 years ago while all the district article were created, and the much better vector maps originally created by fellow Wikipedian hdamm and now updated by Potapt.

Subdistrict to be reassigned in Uttaradit

In the cabinet meeting last Tuesday, one of the issues discussed was the reassign of the subdistrict Tha Faek (ตำบลท่าแฝก) from Tha Pla district to Nam Pat in Uttaradit province. To quote from the transcript of the cabinet meeting. Hopefully my translation is not totally wrong.

คณะรัฐมนตรีมีมติเห็นชอบร่างพระราชกฤษฎีกาเปลี่ยนเขตอำเภอท่าปลากับอำเภอน้ำปาด จังหวัดอุตรดิตถ์ พ.ศ. …. ที่สำนักงานคณะกรรมการกฤษฎีกาตรวจพิจารณาแล้ว ตามที่กระทรวงมหาดไทย (มท.) เสนอ แล้วให้ดำเนินการต่อไปได้

มท. เสนอว่า เนื่องจากตำบลท่าแฝก รวม 9 หมู่บ้าน ประชากรรวม 4,441 คน 1,355 หลังคาเรือน อยู่ห่างอำเภอท่าปลา 116 กิโลเมตร ทำให้ประชาชนได้รับความเดือนร้อนไม่สะดวกในการเดินทางไปติดต่อราชการและขอรับบริการงานต่าง ๆ แต่หากเปลี่ยนแปลงเขตการปกครองท้องที่โดยนำตำบลท่าแฝกไปขึ้นกับอำเภอน้ำปาด ซึ่งมีระยะทางห่างเพียง 59 กิโลเมตร อันเป็นการแก้ไขปัญหาความเดือดร้อนดังกล่าวให้แก่ประชาชน จะทำให้ประชาชนได้รับความสะดวกในทุก ๆ ด้าน ทั้งนี้ การโอนตำบลท่าแฝก อำเภอท่าปลา ไปขึ้นกับอำเภอน้ำปาด จังหวัดอุตรดิตถ์ ได้ผ่านความเห็นชอบจากราษฎรในตำบล สภาองค์การบริหารส่วนตำบล ที่ประชุมหัวหน้าส่วนราชการประจำอำเภอทั้งสองอำเภอ สภาองค์การบริหารส่วนจังหวัด และที่ประชุมหัวหน้าส่วนประจำจังหวัดแล้ว

The cabinet has approved the draft decree to change the area of Tha Pla and Nam Pat district, Uttaradit. The Office of Juridical Council has already reviewed the proposal. The Ministry of Interior (MOI) then continued to propose this draft decree.

MOI states that Tha Faek subdistrict covers 9 administrative villages and 4441 citizen in 1355 household. It is located 116 kilometer from Tha Pla district [office] which causes the citizen inconvenience. Nam Pat district [office] is only 59 kilometer away, which will make it more convenient for the people in every aspect. The transfer of Tha Faek from Tha Pla to Nam Pat was already approved by the citizen in the subdistrict, the council of the subdistrict administrative organization, a conference with the section chief of the government offices of both districts, the council of the provincial administrative organization and the heads of the provincial government.

I first read about this proposal in July last year, when it was first discussed in the Board to consider draft laws [Meeting Transcript]. To become effective, this draft decree must be published in the Royal Gazette first, I am not sure whether it needs the formal approval by parliament as well - but given that this parliament is filled with people selected by the same junta choosing the cabinet members I don't expect any larger delays and guess it will come into effect early next year.

Looking at the map, the reason for this change becomes obvious - since the creation of the Sirikit dam in 1974 the area of Tha Faek became even more disconnected from the center of Tha Pla district than it already was before, actually it is surprising it took 40 years to adjust the administration to the changed traffic situation.

Missing Muban numbers

Working through the local administrative units of Uttaradit, the list of villages of Bo Bia subdistrict, Ban Khok district, had some numbers unassigned. Now normally this indicates that the respective villages are in fact part of a municipality sharing the territory of the subdistrict with the subdistrict administrative organization, but in this remote area this can't be the case as there is no second local government unit in Bo Bia.

หมู่ที่ 1	บ้านบ่อเบี้ย	Ban Bo Bia
หมู่ที่ 2	บ้านห้วยไผ่	Ban Huai Phai
หมู่ที่ 3	บ้านปางคอม	Ban Pang Khom
หมู่ที่ 7	บ้านห้วยยาง	Ban Huai Yang
หมู่ที่ 8	บ้านเด่นชาติ	Ban Den Chat
หมู่ที่ 9	บ้านปางไฮ	Ban Pang Hai
หมู่ที่ 10	บ้านภูต่าง	Ban Phu Tang

The answer is given directly below the table

หมายเหตุ = หมู่ที่ 4 บ้านใหม่ หมู่ที่ 5 บ้านสว่าง และหมู่ที่ 6 บ้านกลาง เนื่องจากเกิดกรณี พิพาทการปักปันเขตแดนสามหมู่บ้านระหว่างไทย-สปป.ลาว เมื่อปี พ.ศ. 2527 จึงได้ยุบรวมเป็น หมู่ที่ 7 บ้านห้วยยาง ในปัจจุบัน

which says that the villages 4 (Ban Mai), 5 (Ban Sawang) and 6 (Ban Klang) were ceded to Laos after a boundary conflict in 1984, and the remaining areas were added to village 7 Ban Huai Yang.

I recalled that more than a year ago I wrote shortly about exactly this boundary conflict, when I found a paper describing it. To quote from that paper

The three villages, both sides agree, are Ban Main, Bai Kang and Ban Savang. The LDPR claims the villages belong to Muong Thong canton, Paklay district, Sayaboury Province. Thailand claims that the disputed area cover 19 square kilometers, is part of Ban Khok subdistrict, Uttaradit Province, and has a present population of 1,010 inhabitants.

I like it when facts from two sources fit together.

An interesting side-note - in fact these villages numbers were created after the boundary dispute, as Bo Bia was split off from Ban Khok subdistrict effective August 1 1986, so the above quoted excerpt is correct by not mentioning Bo Bia, so the "loss" of these three villages wasn't accepted by the Ministry of Interior at that time.

Thesaban subdivision "Khet"

So far I thought that the municipalities are always subdivided into boroughs (Chumchon, ชุมชน), and only very few large cities additionally have subdistricts (Khwaeng), for example Chiang Mai. But now while browsing through the local government entity websites in Uttaradit province, I noticed a strange new case.

The Pha Chuk subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลผาจุก), Mueang Uttaradit district, on their website lists two districts (Khet, เขต), into which the villages are sorted. The TAO Pha Chuk was upgraded in 2007, so it for sure isn't a big municipality two have a more complicate subdivision. The districts are as follows

• Khet 1 (เขต 1), 8 villages
  
  • Mu 1 Ban Wang Yang (หมู่ที่ 1 บ้านวังยาง)
  • Mu 2 Ban Wang Yang (หมู่ที่ 2 บ้านวังยาง)
  • Mu 5 Ban Pha Chuk (หมู่ที่ 5 บ้านผาจุก)
  • Mu 6 Ban Mon Mai (หมู่ที่ 6 บ้านหมอนไม้)
  • Mu 10 Ban Mon Hin Khao (หมู่ที่ 10 บ้านม่อนหินขาว)
  • Mu 12 Ban Daeng Long (หมู่ที่ 12 บ้านแดงหลง)
  • Mu 13 Ban Hat Fang (หมู่ที่ 13 บ้านหาดฝาง)
  • Mu 14 Ban Wang Yang (หมู่ที่ 14 บ้านวังยาง)
• Khet 2 (เขต 2), 6 villages
  
  • Mu 3 Ban Phra Fang (หมู่ที่ 3 บ้านพระฝาง)
  • Mu 4 Ban Phra Fang (หมู่ที่ 4 บ้านพระฝาง)
  • Mu 7 Ban Khlong Na Phong (หมู่ที่ 7 บ้านคลองนาพง)
  • Mu 8 Ban Pha Chak (หมู่ที่ 8 บ้านผาจักร)
  • Mu 9 Ban Nong Bua (หมู่ที่ 9 บ้านหนองบัว)
  • Mu 11 Ban Den Kratai (หมู่ที่ 11 บ้านเด่นกระต่าย)

Sadly the map they have on their website does not allow to read the Muban numbers, but from the fact that the Nan river cuts the subdistrict into two halves it would only be logical that the two Khet are in fact the area north and south of the river. I am also not sure if these Khet are in fact just the two electorate districts, yet these are normally named เขตเลือกตั้ง.

Abolish and recreation of subdistricts in Uttaradit

In 1973 something special happened within the district Tha Pla, three subdistricts were abolished effective December 18 (Gazette), and effective on the same day three new subdistricts were established taking the names of the three abolished subdistricts (Gazette).

The three subdistricts affected are

• Tha Pla (ท่าปลา), the 3 muban of the old subdistrict were added to Pha Lueat
• Hat La (หาดล้า), the 3 muban of the old subdistrict were added to Nam Man
• Charim (จริม), the 2 muban of the old subdistrict were added to Tha Faek
  

The new subdistricts were all split off from Nam Man, and each contained about 10 muban.

Also in 1970, the sanitary district Tha Pla was abolished (Gazette), and a new sanitary district with the same name was established on November 20 1973 (Gazette) - I mentioned this earlier as one of the former municipal areas.

Looking at a map gives the explanation for this - the Sirikit reservoir which was completed in 1973 and thus its area of 220 km² drowned most of the area of those three original subdistricts as well as the sanitary district as the old central town of the district. By the end of 1973 the settlements in those three subdistricts must have been moved already - thus they only consisted of so few muban. Maybe most of the population was moved to the area of Nam Man, and the newly created subdistricts then mainly consisted of the original communities relocated there.