How many tambon are there in Thailand?

I always thought that the question on the number of Tambon (subdistrict) is a trivial one, as several government publication list the number of subdivisions, and they all consistently give a number of 7255 (or 7424 if including the subdistricts of Bangkok, which however actually are a different type of administrative unit) - for example the 2012 list from DOPA, or the 2013 list I didn't noticed yet. I never questioned that number, as I thought the department within the Ministry of Interior would know their numbers well.

But now I am in email contact with someone who has compiled his own lists of municipalities and subdistricts, and then cross-checked then with my spreadsheet. Quite helpful, it showed several cases where I had small mistakes within my lists, as well as clearing up some in his lists. He had a few more subdistricts in his list than me, and I also had a subdistrict named Som Kai (ตำบลสมก๋าย) in Chiang Mai listed as an active subdistrict, even though it was one which was not created, but got a the geocode 50061400 assigned already. But after removing that one, I noticed I still have one subdistrict too much - the corresponding sheet had 7425 subdistricts, thus 7256 Tambon.

Checking with the population numbers from DOPA, the additional Tambon stayed, apparently there are 7256 populated Tambon. Next step then was to check with a Excel sheet showing the subdivision numbers for each province, which also had 7255 Tambon altogether - and with that one I could nail it down to be Nakhon Si Thammarat province to have the additional subdistrict. According to that spreadsheet (and several other sources), the province has 169 Tambon - actually a lot of source show a number of 165, even the website of the province administration itself, which is even more wrong. But I have 170 Tambon, and with a 2003 book listing all the Muban I was able to find the culprit - Pak Phanang district is listed there without the subdistrict Pak Phanang (ตำบลปากพนัง). The only thing special about that subdistrict is the fact that it is completely covered by the town Pak Phanang (เทศบาลเมืองปากพนัง), and thus has no subdivision in to Muban anymore, nor any village or subdistrict headmen. But that is not unique to this Tambon, there are several of this kind in larger towns or cities. In fact, the subdistrict was identical with the area of the town until the town was enlarged in 1993 [Gazette].

Center of Pak Phanang district in 2003

With two offices within DOPA contradicting already, I wasn't able to find any more solid proof in either direction. amphoe.com for example includes a map showing the Tambon of Pak Phanang with only 17 Tambon, even the Royal Gazette is no help - obviously there is no announcement abolishing this subdistrict, but an announcement from 2003 defining the boundaries of the subdistricts again only lists 17 subdistrict. Another announcement from the same year however on land expropriation includes a map which shows this subdistrict.

If anyone can help to clear up this confusion I would be happy, so far I can only find that something is very odd around there.

Municipal changes announced

Yesterday, another two municipal changes were announced in the Royal Gazette.

• Chao Phraya Surasak (เทศบาลนครเจ้าพระยาสุรศักดิ์) in Chonburi province was upgraded from a subdistrict municipality (Thesaban Tambon) to a city (Thesaban Nakhon). In March, the boundary of the municipality with the TAO Nong Khem was defined, and thanks to the comment of a reader I learned that this was done in preparation of upgrading the municipality. In the same month the upgrade was approved by the Board to consider draft laws, and the Royal Gazette announcement was then signed in April and became effective May 1st.
• Hua Khwang subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลหัวขวาง) in Maha Sarakham was renamed to Kosum Phisai (เทศบาลตำบลโกสุมพิสัย) effective July 9 [Gazette]. he municipality is located in the central part of Kosum Phisai district and includes the district office within its area, so the new name makes sense. It also allows to upgrade the TAO Hua Khwang (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลหัวขวาง) covering the remaining part of the subdistrict Hua Khwang to a municipality, then no new name has to be created. However that probably won't happen soon, as just last October a new mayor and council were elected, and normally the TAO are upgraded at the end of the four year terms. Interestingly, it seems the name change was not approved by the Board to consider name changes - unlike other name changes, no meeting reference was given in either the announcement nor in the meeting transcript of the board to consider draft laws.

Municipal upgrades announced in the Royal Gazette

Yesterday, two municipal status changes were announced in the Royal Gazette.

• Wiang Nuea (เทศบาลตำบลเวียงเหนือ), Wiang Chai district, Chiang Rai province was upgraded from a TAO to a subdistrict municipality effective May 21, the date the announcement was signed by Pracha Prasobdee (ประชา ประสพดี), Deputy Minister of the Interior. The change was approved in the board meeting on May 15, making it the first TAO upgrade of this year which made it to the Royal Gazette - though it is not the first TAO upgrade which became effective this year. Wiang Nuea became a TAO in 1997, thus it was upgraded after 4 terms.
• Pichai (เทศบาลเมืองพิชัย), Mueang Lampang district, Lampang province was upgraded from a subdistrict municipality to a town municipality. Phichai became a sanitary district in 1992, then like all the sanitary districts was upgraded to subdistrict municipality in 1999. The upgrade to a town was effective June 13, the day the terms of the current municipal council and mayor end. It was discussed in the same board meeting as Wiang Nuea, interestingly in that meeting also a rename to Phichai Lampang (พิชัยลำปาง) was discussed, but apparently this name change wasn't done.

It is again strange to see that some municipal changes get announced in the Royal Gazette very quickly - two months after being approved is a normal delay for announcements - but many many other municipal changes never get announced in the Royal Gazette and only get effective by ministerial order.

Same-named districts

While there are only five districts which have a non-unique name in Thailand - the five Chaloem Phra Kiat districts (อำเภอเฉลิมพระเกียรติ) created in various parts of the country in 1996 - there is one apparent case of two districts with the same name in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province. Two of the 16 districts of the province are named Bang Sai, but in fact the two districts don't have the same name. The origin of this confusion is the romanization system.

• Bang Sai (บางไทร), the district with geocode 1404, is pronounced with a short ai (in English the same as in the word I) at end. The name means "Banyan tree village".
• Bang Sai (บางซ้าย), the district with geocode 1413, is pronounced with a long ai sound at end. The name means "left village" - don't know what left side is meant by the name.

The reason why both districts share the same English name despite having a different Thai pronounciation is simply due to the over-simplification done by the RTGS transcription scheme. This system, the official standard of transcribing Thai to English, has left out not just the tone heights but also the distinction between the short and long vowels. While there is another pair of districts which share the same English name despite having different Thai names - Wiang Sa in Surat Thani (เวียงสระ) and in Nan (เวียงสา), again with different vowel lengths at end - what makes the two Bang Sai so confusing is the fact that they are located within the same province quite close to each other. For example, in Wikipedia the only way to get a unique name for the two district was to add the geocode to the name, so the articles are located at Bang Sai District (1404) and Bang Sai District (1413).

Going down one administrative level, there strangely is just one case where two subdistricts within one district share the same romanization - in Fang district there are two subdistricts named Mae Kha, one with a short a and one with a long one. For villages however, it is quite common to have more than one village with the same Thai name within one subdistrict, which is no big problem since the villages are more often identified by their number than by their name.

For municipalities, it gets much more confusing, as there are cases of two municipalities with the same Thai name in one district, which only differ by the municipal level, so only when using name and administrative status together the name becomes unique. I will write a separate blog post on those cases later.

Area transfer in Mae Tuen, Li, Lamphun

Today, the transfer of parts of the TAO Wiang Kaeo (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลเวียงแก้ว) to the subdistrict municipality Mae Tuen (เทศบาลตำบลแม่ตืน) was announced in the Royal Gazette, as usual for these changes in two separate announcements, one for the TAO [Gazette] and one for municipality [Gazette] which then also includes a map with the new boundaries. The change was discussed in the March 13 meeting of board 2 responsible for draft laws in the Ministry of Interior, and the meeting transcript contain some more details on this change.

Mae Tuen and Wiang Kaeo share the subdistrict Mae Tuen - until 2011 the TAO was also named Mae Tuen [Gazette] - and when the sanitary district Mae Tuen was created in 1992 [Gazette] it only covered the most densely populated part of Ban Mae Tuen. With this change parts of the administrative villages 3, 11, 12 and 16 are transferred to the municipality, which now covers the whole northern part of the subdistrict. However, I cannot see whether the municipality now covers these villages completely, or they still are shared between TAO and municipality - that may show in the forthcoming local election for Wiang Kaeo to be held in October this year. If the council gets reduced in size from the 32 councilors it has today (there are 17 Muban, but Mu 3 has no population in the area covered by the TAO) to 26, then its likely that the whole Muban were transferred.

New Thesaban geocodes

Last month, the CCAATT table with the geocodes of the central administrative units, and the RCODE table of geocodes for the registration offices were updated. While there were no changes in the CCAATT table - except that obsolete codes were once again removed from the file - a few municipalities were added to the RCODE table. But since it is impossible to assign a TIS:1099 compatible code to every municipality as long as the municipality codes are at the same level as the district codes, these newly added codes don't reduce the number of municipalities without code significantly.

• 9069: Ko Taeo (เทศบาลตำบลเกาะแต้ว), Mueang Songkhla District, Songkhla Province. Was upgraded to municipality August 2008
• 9068: Thung Lan (เทศบาลตำบลทุ่งลาน), Khlong Hoi Khon District, Songkhla Province. Was upgraded to municipality July 2008
• 5765: Huai So (เทศบาลตำบลห้วยซ้อ), Chiang Khong District, Chiang Rai Province. Was upgraded to municipality October 2011
• 4566: Ma-ue (เทศบาลตำบลมะอึ), Thawat Buri District, Roi Et Province. Was upgraded to a municipality July 2008.
• 4565: Niwet (เทศบาลตำบลนิเวศน์), Thawat Buri District, Roi Et Province. Was upgraded to a municipality July 2008.
• 4061: Nong Tum (เทศบาลตำบลหนองตูม), Mueang Khon Kaen District, Khon Kaen Province. Was upgraded to municipality July 2008.
• 4060: Muang Wan (เทศบาลตำบลม่วงหวาน), Nam Phong District, Khon Kaen Province. Was upgraded to municipality July 2008.
• 4059: Na Kha (เทศบาลตำบลนาข่า), Mancha Khiri District, Khon Kaen Province. Was upgraded to municipality October 2009.
• 4058: Non Sombun (เทศบาลตำบลโนนสมบูรณ์), Khao Suan Kwang District, Khon Kaen Province. Was upgraded to municipality July 2009.
• 3467: Mueang Si Khai (เทศบาลตำบลเมืองศรีไค), Warin Chamrap District, Ubon Ratchathani Province. Was upgraded to municipality October 2009.
• 3466: Phon Ngam (เทศบาลตำบลโพนงาม), Det Udom District, Ubon Ratchathani Province. Was upgraded to municipality October 2009.

The only other changes in the table to its previous version from March 2012 were several municipal status changes and a few name changes. Interestingly, in Roi Et the strange codes 4568 and 4567 referring to no valid municipality were not re-used, though there were removed from the list in this update. Also, as can be seen be the dates when the municipalities were created, sometimes a municipality created more recently got a code while other upgraded before still have received no code.

Changwat Bua Yai in discussion

Khun Wisarut from the 2bangkok forum has posted some news about the re-emergence of the plan to split off some part of Nakhon Ratchasima province. Since Khorat is such a big province, both by area (20494 km², the largest of all provinces) and by population, with 2.6 million it is second after Bangkok. And also by the number of districts it would make sense to split off some of the 32 districts to make a new province.

The situation is quite opposite with Ubon Ratchathani - whereas Khorat was never changed since its creation as Boriwen Nakhon Ratchasima in 1899 [Gazette], Ubon Ratchathani was split twice.

• Amnat Charoen in 1993 [Gazette]
• Yasothon in 1972 [Gazette]

Without these changes, Ubon would be larger than Khorat both by area and by population. Of course there were plans to split off parts of Khorat in past, the one most advanced was the 1955 plan to split off Bua Yai and Phutthaisong from Buriram to make a new province to be named Pathom Thong, which however was halted after the 1957 coup. The latest attempt was now started by Phuea Thai MP Koson Patthama (นายโกศล ปัทมะ) from Nakhon Ratchasima constituency 5, which includes Bua Yai district. There is however a significant opposition to this plan, most significantly by local patriots who worry about the unity of their historical heritage. To get an idea of whether this plan would make sense or not it would be great to have a scientific study on the effects creation of Amnat Charoen province, but at least in English there seem to be nothing like that.

A one-hour TV discussion was uploaded to YouTube, but my Thai is way to bad to follow any of it.

The new province is supposed to include eight districts, all of them were originally part of the district Bua Yai (อำเภอบัวใหญ่).

• 1939: Khong (อำเภอคง) split from Bua Yai [Gazette].
• 1957: Prathai (อำเภอประทาย) split from Bua Yai [Gazette].
• 1961: Non Daeng (อำเภอโนนแดง) was split from Prathai [Gazette].
• 1976: Ban Lueam (อำเภอบ้านเหลื่อม) split from Khong [Gazette].
• 1986: Kaeng Sanam Nang (อำเภอแก้งสนามนาง) split from Bua Yai [Gazette]
• 1997: Bua Lai (อำเภอบัวลาย, Gazette) and Sida (อำเภอสีดา, Gazette) were split from Bua Yai.

The province Bua Yai (จังหวัดบัวใหญ่) would cover 2149 km² (10.5% of the whole province) and 375,000 citizen (14% of whole province). It would thus fit with the conditions for creating a new province - but not sure if there would be a consensus of the population to establish this province.