Muban geocodes

The geocodes for provinces, district and subdistricts include another two digits at the end for the villages (muban, หมู่บ้าน). The villages itself had a numerical code long before that geocode system was introduced, they are named หมู่ที่ # (Mu Ti #). While they also have a name, this does not have to be unique - the term "village" is a bit misleading, larger settlements may be subdivided into several muban sharing the same name but obviously different numbers. On the other hand there are also muban which cover several small settlements and thus have two or three names. Hence the name is not a possible way to identify a muban, but the number is the only unambiguous way.

So for example Bang Boet Lang (บางเบิดล่าง or village 1 of subdistrict Bang Bai Mai in Mueang Surat Thani district has the geocode 84010501 - province code 84, Mueang district always have the 01, and the subdistrict has the number 5. A case where the name is not unique are villages 1 to 4 of Phai Khwang subdistrict, Mueang Phichit district, which are all named Ban Dan (บ้านดาน); finally village 8 of Samo Khae subdistrict in Mueang Phitsanulok is named Ban Chat Kaeo - Chin Lap (บ้านฉัตรแก้ว-ชินลาภ), a name listing the two settlements which are comprised into this single administrative entitiy.

There is however a problem with the village numbers as well - they are not stable in time. At least till the end of the 1990s, when the last subdistricts were created - the villages left after splitting off a new subdistrict get renumbered, so a given code can refer to two different villages, one always have to add the date one is using. The codes for the higher levels however do not get reused, so it has districts and provinces where the numbers of the sub-entities have holes. However only a few of the Royal Gazette announcements on the subdistrict creations explicitly state the renumbering, like the one of Sala Lai (ตำบลศาลาลัย), Sam Roi Yot, Prachuap Khiri Khan in 1995, in most cases this was done implicitly.

To make this even more confusing - there are subdistricts where the village numbers has hole. The first one I came across is probably a mistake. In the 2008 announcement with tambon area clarification of Lum Din (ตำบลหลุมดิน), Amphoe Mueang Ratchaburi number 1 is missing, however in the similar announcement from 1998 the same list of names starts with one instead. But Wat Chan (ตำบลวัดจันทร์) subdistrict of Mueang Phitsanulok really only has villages 2, 4, 7 till 10, as one can see in a 2006 Gazette announcement as well as the website of the TAO. But I cannot find yet what had happened with the villages having the missing numbers, there was no new subdistrict created there recently, maybe they have been reassigned to the city of Phitsanulok and thus subdistrict Nai Mueang?

Muban list from DOPA?

In the command section of the website of the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) I just noticed one notable one titled ให้จังหวัดแจ้งอำเภอและเทศบาลเร่งรัดตรวจสอบข้อมูลหมู่บ้านหรือชุมชนแล้วแต่กรณี. If I am not wrong the title translates to "[order] to provinces to advise districts and municipalities to speed up check if data of village (muban) and boroughs (chumchon) confirms with facts". Some others talk about a รายชื่อหมู่บ้านและชุมชน (list of names of villages and boroughs). This all seem to be concerned with the introduction of some new SML-based technology.

It would be great if this would enabled DOPA to publish a complete list of villages and boroughs, additional to the list of subdistricts they already have on their website. Actually, they should have all the information for the plain list with code and name, it just appears not to be public. So far I have only found incomplete ones (e.g. this), or just recently this Excel sheet from a server of the Ministry of Public Health. This second one has 58188 villages with their name and geocode, apparently as of 2005. But it must be incomplete as well, as there are more than 70,000 villages.

Satellite Exploration of Thailand

As I am always looking for new sources of information around the administrative entities, I am often checking if Google finds anything interesting. The website searches for terms like amphoe or tambon are already polluted with spam websites for hotels and such (yet luckily this blog is still in the top 20), but the image search now led me to a great new project.

Shinji Saito from Japan is apparently writing a kind of an online book comparing different maps and various satellite photography of Thailand. Named Satellite Exploration of Thailand it currently consists of three parts - a general introduction, a description of the many sources of maps and satellite images, and then finally several areas in a detailed study. Due to the current politics the most interesting one is of course the boundary area at Khao Phra Viharn. And there are also further areas he is still working one where one can already see his drafts.

That site is now in my bookmarks, and after reading it completely I will continue to monitor it for updates.

Regions change in 1948

When I wrote on the regions in the 1940s earlier, I omitted one announcement with another change of the provinces contained in the five regions. I just find that one now because it had a slightly different caption - using ปรับปรุง (improve, adjust) instead of เปลี่ยนแปลง (change) and therefore slipped through my previous search in the Royal Gazette database.

The changes were announced on December 31 1948, little bit more than one year after the previous change for the region. The changes mostly concern region 1 and 2, which change back to the outline of 1941 with a western and eastern region. The northern region gets enlarged again with respect to the 1947 outline, also unlike all other outlines, the province Prachuap Khiri Khan has been added to the southern region. Yet the most odd thing is the fact that coastal provinces Samut Songkhram and Samut Sakhon belong to region 2, while the inland provinces directly north all belong to region 1. Thus if the district Bang Khun Thian of Thonburi province like today extended till the coastline, these two provinces became exclaves within the regional outline.

PAO election brochure, Part 2

I haven't forgotten the PAO election brochure, I just was too busy with other tasks like working through the TAO, so this one was put behind a bit. But now the next page of the brochure, with another issue on the voter directory, and then the description of the voting procedure itself.  

การถอนชื่อ
กรณีผู้มีสิทธิเลือกตั้งหรือเจ้าบ้านได้เห็นว่า
ในบัญชีรายชื่อผู้มีสิทธิเลือกตั้งมีชื่อผู้ไม่สิทธิ
เลือกตั้งปรากฏอยู่ในทะเบียนบ้าน ให้เจ้าบ้าน
หรือผู้ซึ่งเจ้าบ้านมอบหมาย นำสำเนาทะเบียนบ้าน
ฉบับเจ้าบ้านไปแสดงเป็นหลักฐานต่อนายทะเบียน
ท้องถิ่น ณ งานทะเบียนราษฎร์ สำนักทะเบียน
ท้องถิ่น และที่ว่าการอำเภอ ก่อนวันเลือกตั้ง
ไม่น้อยกว่า ๑๐ วัน ทั้งนี้ตั้งแต่วันที่
๓๐ มีนาคม ๙ เมษายน ๒๕๕๑ 


How to withdraw your name
In case an eligible voter or a house owner can see that
the voters directory contains the name of a person without
voting rights go to the house registration, either the house owner
or a person entrusted by the house owner, bring a copy of the house register
of the house owner to be proof for the local house registration officer
at the local registration office
and the district office before election day
no less than 10 days, in between
30 March and 9 April 2551 

วิธีการลงคะแนนเลือกตั้ง
* นำบัตรประชาชน หรือบัตรประจำตัว
เจ้าหน้าที่ของรัฐ ใบอนุญาตขับขี่ ยื่นแสดง
ขอใช้สิทธิเลือกตั้งต่อกรรมการประจำ
หน่วยเลือกตั้ง ณ หน่วยเลือกตั้งทีมีสิทธิ
ลงคะแนน 

Voting procedures
* bring ID card or for government officials
the working card, driving license, give to
indicate your wish to vote to the regular board
of the voting station where you have the right
to vote

* ผู้มีสิทธิลงคะแนนเลือกตั้งหนึ่งคน จะได้รับบัตร
๒ ใบ โดยทำเครื่องหมาย กากบาท (x) ดังนี้ 
every eligible voter receives two ballot papers to make to cross (x) signs as follows

ใบที่หนึ่ง บัตรเลือกสมาชิกสภาองค์การบริหาร
ส่วนจังหวัด กากบาทได้ ๑ คน 

First leaf: ballot paper for the PAO council mark one person with a cross  

ใบที่สอง บัตรเลือกนายกองค์การบริหาร
ส่วนจังหวัด กากบาทได้ ๑ คน 

Second leaf: ballot paper for the PAO chairman mark one person with a cross 

นำบัตรลงคะแนนเลือกตั้งหน่วย หย่อนใส่
หีบเลือกตั้งด้วยคนเองต่อหน้ากรรมการ
ประจำหน่วยเลือกตั้ง 

Bring the ballot paper to the ballot box, and drop it into the ballot box only in front of the ballot station committee

Varadis Palace

Yesterday I stumbled upon the Wikipedia article on the Varadis Palace, the former residence of Prince Damrong. The article consisted of the single sentence

Varadis Palace is a museum in Bangkok, Thailand.

How much I hate articles like this, they are totally useless in my view. In moments like this I wish the English Wikipedia would adopt the same policy on such non-articles as the German Wikipedia, where stuff like this is instantly deleted. I enlarged by more than 100%, only adding the most trivial things like that it was the home of Prince Damrong, that it was built in 1911 and renovated in 1996, as well as adding the geotag so it will show up in Google Earth or Google Maps in the future as well. All these things the original author could have done by investing 5 minutes on Google, instead of leaving the actual work to someone else. The article is now still very short and has a lot of potential for future expansion, but at least it contains the most important information and not just the obvious ones. And to make it worse - there are maybe 100 articles in this state on various sights in Bangkok, all linked from a list of museums in Bangkok - which even includes Phutthamonthon to be in Bangkok.

But how is this related with the topic of this blog. Prince Damrong Rajanubhab was the first Interior Minister of Thailand, and it was him who created the administrative system still in use today in the thesaphiban (เทศาภิบาล) administrative reforms at the beginning of the 20th century.When I first read about this palace in the tour-bangkok-legacies website it is on my list of places I need to visit, but so far I haven't made it there - otherwise I might have written the above article before already, and would also have photos to illustrate it.

When Googeling to enlarge that article, I also came across a website dedicated to Prince Damrong from the Ministry of Interior. However in English it sadly only has one page.

PAO constituencies

When I first mentioned the constituencies for the PAO elections in Surat Thani, I wrote that I could not find the list of the constituencies and the areas covered by each. I checked both the website of the province as well as the one of the PAO itself, but did not find anything - and I wonder why I haven't looked at the most obvious source for such things, the Royal Gazette.

When I earlier looked at the website of the Royal Gazette, I checked their list of new announcements in the vain hope that they might have something like a RSS feed for this. But instead I noticed that the entry at the bottom was on the constituencies for the elections of Ranong PAO (การแบ่งเขตเลือกตั้งสมาชิกสภาองค์การบริหารส่วนจังหวัดระนอง), and so I could easily find the same for Surat Thani dating from 2003. So I can now finally compile a XML with the complete data on the 2008 Surat Thani PAO election, including the results I found earlier. I'll announce it once I have it finished.