Changwat, Amphoe, Tambon

Population statistics 2011 at province level

2012-05-23T13:10:00.000+02:00

Taking a closer look at the 2011 population statistics, there are some interesting changes in the population number development. To make thing easier to compare with the previous years, I have added the population of Bueng Kan back into Nong Khai, as otherwise Nong Khai would be biggest population looser by far - minus 44% compared with 2010.

Thus comparing 2010 with 2011, the biggest winner is Pathum Thani, which grew by 2.56% (25,255 citizen), closely followed by Phuket which grew by 2.54% (8,780 citizen). The biggest looser was Lampang, which lost 0.58% (4,415 citizen). However, in the top ten of provinces by population, there was no change this time.

1.	Krung Thep Maha Nakhon	5,674,843
2.	Nakhon Ratchasima	2,585,325
3.	Ubon Ratchathani	1,816,057
4.	Khon Kaen	1,766,066
5.	Chiang Mai	1,646,144
6.	Buri Ram	1,559,085
7.	Udon Thani	1,548,107
8.	Nakhon Si Thammarat	1,526,071
9.	Si Sa Ket	1,452,203
10.	Surin	1,380,399

Much more interesting trends show up when comparing the 2011 data with those from 1993, the earliest date for which DOPA has the detailed data online. Three provinces gained population by more than 50%, and these are also the same three which had the highest growth between 2010 and 2011. As the overall population also grew by 9.84%, those provinces which lost population didn't loose as much, but still four provinces lost more than 5% of their population in the last 20 years.

1.	Pathum Thani	102.14%
2.	Phuket	82.23%
3.	Nonthaburi	56.48%
73.	Lampang	-5.05%
74.	Samut Songkhram	-5.78%
75.	Phrae	-6.61%
76.	Phichit	-6.82%

Whereas the population of Bangkok stayed almost stable - an increase of just 1.83% (102,131 citizen) since 1993 - the two provinces north of Bangkok grew significantly. But looking at the geography, this is easily understood - south of Bangkok is just the already densely populated Samut Prakan province, both the east and the west of Bangkok are still not that densely populated, but to the north Nonthaburi adjoins densely populated districts of Bangkok directly.

If anyone wants to play around more with the numbers, I have uploaded an Excel sheet with all the population data from 1993 to 2011 at province level.

Split of Bang Khae district back on the agenda

2012-05-16T13:11:00.000+02:00

The split of Bang Khae district, the largest of all the 50 districts of Bangkok by population, is back on the agenda after it was not pushed strong enough to become effective with the 2010 district council elections. Khun Wisarut from the 2bangkok forum has found an article in the Daily News newspaper (เดลินิวส์) which shows that the split of this district is now again in discussion.

According to that article, the city council of Bangkok now sets up a working group to gather the facts like the necessary budget, do a public hearing in the district, so the issue can then be discussed in the next council meeting in June. As the next district council elections will be in 2014 and it is probably preferred to let the current council complete its term, there should be ample time to have the change be effective till then.

TAO Non Khom, Khon Kaen upgraded to municipality

2012-05-11T13:00:00.000+02:00

The subdistrict administrative organization Non Khom (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลโนนคอม) in Phu Pha Man district, Khon Kaen province was upgraded to a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลโนนคอม) with the announcement published in the Royal Gazette yesterday. As it was signed by the Deputy Minister of Interior Chuchat Hansawat (นายชูชาติ หาญสวัสดิ์) on April 17, this is probably also the date by which the upgrade is effective.

Interestingly, as of now the only weblink for เทศบาลตำบลโนนคอม is the Thai Wikipedia article on Phu Pha Man district, which was updated few hours after the publication was online on the Royal Gazette website - this upgrade was not listed in any of the newly available board transcripts of this year.

Thai Fail blog

2012-05-10T13:00:00.000+02:00

In a special issue of my Thursday linkage, this time I link with three posting from the Thai fail blog. The Thai fail blog featurs more-or-less funny photos from Thailand - however most of them not understandable without a very good knowledge in Thai language. I even could contribute once myself. Recently, there were three postings there related to the topics I write about.

Somewhere in Aranyaprathet district, Sa Kaeo province, there is a road named ถนนผู้ว่าฯ นายกฯ 2555) - Province Governor, Mayor Road 2555. If reading the year number in a Thinglish way, it becomes "two ha ha ha". In other words - ludicrous politicians.
A village in Sisaket is named "Ban O Sabai" (บ้านโอว์สบาย), literally "village O comfortable". A village name which I would have not noticed in my lists of administrative villages, as apparently this village is only a satellite village, part of an administrative village with a different name.
I have no real idea what is the fail at this election poster, explaining in comic style how to vote for the mayor of ... Only guessing from the URL, it may make fun of the fact that on the ballot one has to use a X mark, all other kinds of marking your choice will make the ballot invalid.

Board meeting transcripts are back

2012-05-09T13:00:00.000+02:00

After more than a year without the board meeting transcripts, and thus no early notice about the municipal changes, now with another redesign of the website of the Legal Affair Bureau of the Permanent Secretary for Interior (สำนักกฎหมาย สำนักงานปลัดกระทรวงมหาดไทย) I finally discovered that the transcripts have reappeared. There were two changes - first they are now in PDF format instead of WinWord, which has the drawback that in some of the files the copy-and-paste does not work. The second change is that for this year the agenda of each meeting is shown in the overview page, and not just the agenda of those meetings already available as transcripts, but also those of the meetings still not held. To bad that for last year there are only the PDFs, thus I will have to check through them manually.

Thus according to this agenda list, this year the board has and will discuss until May 16

26 TAO upgrades to municipalities (including one changing name with the upgrade),
1 subdistrict municipality upgrade to a town municipality,
1 TAO upgrade to a town municipality.

Of course there were other points on the agendas, like land reform acts, but those I won't cover, so I simply only mention the municipal changes. I have already started to post the summaries to the Thesaban Updates Blog, for example the transcript of the March 21 meeting can now be found over there.

Meeting number 19 from March 21 2012 with four TAO upgraded to subdistrict municipalities.

Som Wang (เทศบาลตำบลสมหวัง), Kong Ra district, Phatthalung province, effective April 6. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 28.34 km², 7 villages and 4,542 citizen.

Saen Hai (เทศบาลตำบลแสนไห), Wiang Haeng district, Chiang Mai province, effective April 6. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 22 km², 5 villages and 2,988 citizen.

Chanot (เทศบาลตำบลชะโนด), Wan Yai district, Mukdahan province, effective April 22. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 4.49 km², 5 villages and 2,432 citizen.

Tae (เทศบาลตำบลแต้), Uthumphon Phisai district, Sisaket province. Decision was moved to a later meeting.

Tambon word cloud

2012-05-07T13:14:00.000+02:00

As I just found a nice word cloud creator, I have done the word cloud for this feed. Not sure how many of the nearly 1000 posts were included, but seems like province, district, municipality and subdistrict are quite prominent terms here - well, not really surprising.

9 Province governors transferred

2012-05-04T13:00:00.000+02:00

In the May 17, the transfer of 9 province governors was approved.

Bunchoet Khithen (นายบุญเชิด คิดเห็น), province governor of Lampang to become director-general in the Land Department.
Tawatchai Thoetphaothai (นายธวัชชัย เทอดเผ่าไทย), province governor of Rayong to become governor of Lampang.
Seni Chittakasem (นายเสนีย์ จิตตเกษม), province governor of Trang to become province governor of Rayong.
Thirayut Iamtrakun (นายธีระยุทธ เอี่ยมตระกูล), province governor of Surat Thani to become governor of Trang.
Chiatsak Chusi (นายเชิดศักดิ์ ชูศรี), inspector-general in the Ministry to become province governor of Surat Thani.
Somsak Khamthawiphrom (นายสมศักดิ์ ขำทวีพรหม), provicne governor of Roi Et to become inspector-general in the Ministry.
Wanchat Wongchaichana (นายวันชาติ วงษ์ชัยชนะ), inspector-general in the Ministry to become province governor of Roi Et.
Chairot Nidaeng (นายชัยโรจน์ มีแดง), province governor of Nakhon Sawan to become governor of Phisanulok.
Pricha Rueangchan (นายปรีชา เรืองจันทร์), province governor of Phitsanulok to become governor of Nakhon Sawan.

The website of Lampang was already updated, from that page I could find that the transfer was effective April 27.

Four municipalities changed

2012-04-27T13:00:00.001+02:00

Yesterday four announcements were published in the Royal Gazette, all modifying municipalities - three upgrades of municipalities including one name change, and one TAO upgraded to a municipality. In detail, the following was done.

Nong Ko subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลหนองโก), Khon Kaen province, renamed and upgraded to Kranuan town (เทศบาลเมืองกระนวน), effective March 9. [Gazette]
Phak Hai subdistrict municipality, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province, upgraded to a town municipality (เทศบาลเมืองผักไห่), effective March 9. [Gazette]
Bua Khao subdistrict municipality, Kalasin province, upgraded to a town municipality (เทศบาลเมืองบัวขาว), effective March 9. [Gazette]
Mae Ho Phra subdistrict administrative organization, Chiang Mai province, upgraded to a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลแม่หอพระ). [Gazette]

And since I complained about the lack of maps in the last set of municipal announcements, this time all four announcements include the municipal boundary definitions and a map, though technically only necessary for the upgrade of the TAO - in the other three cases no municipal borders were changed.

DOPA headmen magazine

2012-04-25T13:00:00.000+02:00

Cover 10/1998

Some years ago, I posted about the Thesaphiban magazine published by the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) as its internal magazine to reach all the various offices in a less formal way. Now by some random googling I have noticed that there is a second similar magazine, also published by DOPA but targeted to the lower admninistrative levels - the village and subdistrict headmen.

This magazine, titled "กำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน" (Subdistrict headman, Village headman) is also a monthly magazine, first published on December 5 1949. Sadly, it seems it is only available in paper copies, I haven't been able to see any downloadable PDFs of it. All the online information on it is rather well hidden on the DOPA website, and very outdated - from the starting page on the magazine one can only find the covers and table of contents of the years 1998 and 2002. But the magazine is still in print, just few days before I discovered the magazine, the Public Relation Department issued a short advert with the details on how to subscribe. Thus the magazine costs 216 Baht for one year, but to subscribe or get any further details one has to call a number within DOPA - funnily at the extension number 404.

There is not much else to find about this magazine on the web, the only other interesting thing are some scans of a 1957 issue, which is apparently for sale. Though probably one could find more old issues at the Chutachak weekend market - haven't been there for long time, and never browsed through the book and magazine part of the market. Though I probably won't be able to read and understand much, I would certainly love to get one (current) issue of this magazine (and the Thesaphiban magazine)...

Chumchon emblems

2012-04-20T13:00:00.000+02:00

While looking for new local administrations to add to my Google plus circle, I stumbled upon the account of the borough (Chumchon) Tha Ruea (ชุมชนตลาดท่าเรือ) of Surat Thani city. Though still an inactive account, it is the first of the municipal subdivisions which I found in Google plus. But when I looked for some more information about the boroughs of Surat Thani - the city website sadly has no such list, so it a bit more searching was necessary - I next found the facebook page of this borough, which is much more active than their Google plus. The header artwork of their page then to my surprise did not show the emblem of the city, but an emblem specific to the borough.

So far, to my knowledge it is only those administrative units to have an emblem which are also a legal person - thus the provinces, the municipalities and TAO, the PAO (which however usually share the same artwork as the province) and Bangkok and its district. The other districts however have no emblem, since they are also no legal person. I have never before seen any borough emblem, and also don't know whether the borough have legal person status or not, but since this emblem looks very much like the other official emblems there may be even more emblems of administrative units than the nearly 8000 of the types listed above. Its a pity there seems to be no heraldic books on Thailand except those few published by the Department Of Fine Arts.

The emblem of Tha Ruea depicts a Chinese style ship, which fits the name and location of this borough - Tha Ruea means "harbor", and it is located directly at the river front harbor of the city. Though harbor is a bit of an exaggeration, there are only very few ships there - and to me it always seemed like they are permanently moored there, as I never seen any ship leave or noticed them change position.

Anyway, now I am of course curious if the other 42 boroughs of Surat Thani also have such emblems, or if the boroughs of other municipalities have such artwork as well. It is really sad that in most municipality websites, there boroughs are either not mentioned at all, or just as the list of their names, but no detailed information.

Muban rename in Chiang Rai

2012-04-19T13:08:00.000+02:00

Village 23 of Huai So subdistrict (ตำบลห้วยซ้อ), Chiang Khong district, Chiang Rai province, was renamed from Ban Ka Salong Kham (บ้านกาสลองคำ) to Ban Kaen Salong Kham (บ้านแก่นสะลองคำ), as published in the Royal Gazette today.

The name change, which is more like a spelling change, was approved by the Board to consider name changes in its first meeting this year on January 17, and the announcement then signed by vice province governor Surachai Sinthong (นายสุรชัย ลิ้นทอง) on March 8.

DOPA entity numbers 2012

2012-04-18T13:04:00.000+02:00

The Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) has added the numbers of administrative subdivisions as of December 31 2011 to their website. According to that list, Thailand now has

76 provinces
878 districts (not including those within Bangkok)
7255 subdistricts (not including those within Bangkok)
74956 administrative villages
2082 municipalities - 27 cities, 166 towns and 1900 subdistrict municipalities
5693 subdistrict administrative organizations (TAO)
2 special administrative areas (Bangkok and Pattaya)
76 provincial administrative organizations (PAO)

Compared with last year, the only change for the central administrative units was the creation of one administrative village. But since the above numbers are as of December 31, this cannot be the new village in Yala announced earlier this year, as that became effective January 17. So it looks like another village creation was done, but not announced (yet).

Of course, the bigger change was within the municipality numbers, but thanks to the documents from the Department of Local Administration I should have my data current for these already.

New ccaa file

2012-04-16T13:00:00.000+02:00

On March 9, the Department of Provincial Administration updated their ccaa lists of geocodes, the most current version of the TIS1099 standard last updated in 2005. There are however only very few changes to the last version - in the ccaa list with the districts and subdistricts, only four subdistricts had their name change.

Thung Pi subdistrict, Chiang Mai (50220200) changed spelling from ทุ่งปี้ to ทุ่งปี๊ [Announcement].
Kham Rian (ขามเรียน), Maha Sarakham (44110600) renamed to Sang Saeng (ขามเรียน) [Announcement].
Nong Kheng (หนองเข็ง), Bueng Kan (38010300) renamed to Non Sawang (โนนสว่าง) [Announcement].
Huai Khayung, Ubon Ratchathani (34152400) changed spelling from ห้วยขะยูง to ห้วยขะยุง. It seems this was a long time error in the DOPA data, as the municipality was already spelled with the short u, and also in all Royal Gazette documents the subdistrict was spelled with short u. I already stumbled on the same issue while processing the 2011 population data.

The RCode list, which contains the codes for registration offices, and therefore most notably the codes for the municipalities, has some more changes, however most (eight) are simply municipal upgrades. The other changes in the list are the following.

Bang Len (เทศบาลตำบลบ้านเลน), Ayutthaya province (1486) renamed to Bang Pa In (เทศบาลตำบลบางปะอิน) [Announcement].
Na Wa Yai (เทศบาลตำบลนาหว้าใหญ่), Amnat Charoen province (3798) renamed to Pathum Ratchawongsa (เทศบาลตําบลปทุมราชวงศา) [Announcement].
Nong Kheng (เทศบาลตําบลหนองเข็ง), Bueng Kan province (3888) renamed to Non Sawang (เทศบาลตําบลโนนสว่าง) [Announcement].
Nong Ko (เทศบาลตำบลหนองโก), Khon Kaen province (4082) renamed to Kranuan and upgraded to town municipality (เทศบาลเมืองกระนวน).

Only the last one was news to me, as it wasn't announced in the Royal Gazette yet, nor was it mentioned in the Excel sheet I found at DOLA. Also, some new codes were added.


2177 เทศบาลตำบลพลา

2178 เทศบาลตำบลเนินฆ้อ

4062 เทศบาลตำบลเมืองเก่า

4665 เทศบาลตำบลจุมจัง

5040 เทศบาลตำบลสันปูเลย

6485 เทศบาลตำบลป่ากุมเกาะ

7266 เทศบาลตำบลท้าวอู่ทอง

7267 เทศบาลตำบลกระจัน

7381 เทศบาลตำบลบางกระทึก

Strange is only the case of San Pu Loei, which already has the code 5046, but marked with an asterisk as an obsolete entry, and now added again with the code 5040.

Municipal upgrades

2012-04-11T13:00:00.000+02:00

Three municipalities upgrades were published in the Royal Gazette last week.

Mueang Pak subdistrict municipality, Nakhon Ratchasima province to town municipality (เทศบาลเมืองเมืองปัก). [Gazette]
Sakon Nakhon town, Sakon Nakhon province to city (เทศบาลนครสกลนคร) [Gazette]
Tha Mai subdistrict municipality, Chanthaburi province to town (เทศบาลเมืองท่าใหม่) [Gazette]

Sadly, only the announcement on Mueang Pak contains the boundary definition and the map, so I was only able to get the location of the municipality office for Mueang Pak. Though actually it probably won't be much help for Tha Mai, as the office seems to be located near the district office in the middle of the town, and none of the buildings around there looks like a more representative office building. And for Sakon Nakhon I already has the location in my XML.

Population statistic 2011

2012-04-09T13:00:00.000+02:00

As expected, the full population statistics from the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) for the year 2011 (2554) has become online. The main index page wasn't yet updated, so it can only be found right now in case one guesses the URL - or follows the links in this post.

However, unlike previous years the data has quite a lot of problems. The most obvious one is that the new province Bueng Kan is missing - while listed in the index page with a population of 407,634, but the pages with the district and subdistrict data are still 404. The other big problem is the big number of strange subdistrict entries. Already in past years, there were occasional subdistricts with one or two citizen added in a municipality where they actually should be found, something that in past I had interpreted as a municipal border not exactly identical with the subdistrict boundaries. However, this year a total of 33 such entries were so much wrong that my algorithm could not parse them anymore. To give a few examples

In Bangkok, Bang Na subdistrict (แขวงบางนา) is additionally to its correct data within Bang Na district, one male in one household is found in Bang Na subdistrict in Phra Khanong district - the district which in past contained Bang Na subdistrict (see here).
In Fao Rai district of Nong Khai province, the subdistrict Kut Bong (ตำบลกุดบง) is listed with a single unpopulated household, whereas Fao Rai subdistrict (ตำบลเฝ้าไร่) has 1220 citizen in just 2 households. But in fact, all of Fao Rai subdistrict belongs to Fao Rai subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลเฝ้าไร่) listed one page later, and Kut Bong is actually in Phon Phisai district (see here). Whereas Kut Bong must be wrong, the Fao Rai case may be real, as it also found in the 2010 data - maybe the two households are military barracks, which are not under the jurisdiction of the municipality.
In Chai Prakan district, Chiang Mai province, the subdistrict Nong Bua is listed twice, once marked with an asterisk and one unpopulated household, and a second time with the actual population. Additionally, a single unpopulated household is listed under Wiang subdistrict, which isn't within Chai Prakan at all (see here).

Except the Fao Rai case (which also made no problems for my parsing algorithm), all these strange entries must be bogus. I have not much hope it will create any reaction if I send an email with the above questions to DOPA, I guess I nevertheless should give it a try, at least to get the data for Bueng Kan.

Update:
The data for Bueng Kan showed up one day after this posting - wonder if that was a coincidence or if I have a reader within DOPA who called the right official?

License plate update for Nakhon Si Thammarat

2012-04-02T13:07:00.000+02:00

I almost missed another license plate graphic announcement, as on March 21 a new graphic for Nakhon Si Thammarat was published in the Royal Gazette. The graphic shows the natural abundance in the province in the middle - fish, palm trees and birds. To the left is a shadow play figure, in the special style only found in this province. I am not sure what is the special meaning of the dancer to the right, probably a special cultural feature of the province.

Nakhon Si Thammarat 2012

Interestingly, when comparing the graphic with the one published in 2006 [Gazette], one notices that the graphic is in fact identical, the only difference are the colors - whereas in 2006 the dancer and shadow play figure are in purple and white, in 2012 especially the dancer is much more colorful.

Nakhon Si Thammarat 2006

As these license plate graphics are becoming a quite popular topic of this blog, and I was just asked about it, I checked through the Royal Gazette announcements to check which provinces have not received any license plate graphic yet. Interestingly, this is not just the recently created province Bueng Kan, but another seven further one - Amnat Charoen, Nong Bua Lamphu, Mae Hong Son, Samut Songkhram, Ranong, Narathiwat and Yala. And maybe Betong could also be missing, as that district has its own license plates and does not use the one of Yala province. I have no idea if these provinces really have no graphic yet, or if these graphics were only not published in the Royal Gazette.

Official population as of December 31 2011

2012-03-29T13:16:00.001+02:00

Today, the national registration office has published the official population of Thailand as of December 31 2011 in the Royal Gazette, listed for each province and the total number. Thus Thailand now has 64,076,033 citizen - 31,529,148 male and 32,546,885 female. Compared to last year, this is an increase of 197766 or 0.3%. Thus hopefully it won't take long until the full population statistics of 2011 down to subdistrict level will be added to the DOPA website, which then would allow me to calculate some more statistics.

TAO Hang Dong, Chiang Mai renamed

2012-03-26T13:24:00.000+02:00

Effective April 6, the subdistrict administrative organization Hang Dong (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลหางดง) in Chiang Mai province will be renamed to Mae Tha Chang (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลแม่ท่าช้าง), according to the Royal Gazette announcement published today. The name change is probably in preparation of an upgrade to a municipality, as within the same subdistrict the subdistric municipality Hang Dong (เทศบาลตำบลหางดง) is located. Interestingly, the emblem of Hang Dong TAO already shows two elephants (in Thai Chang ช้าง), thus except the name on the bordure the emblem does not need to be changed.

And thanks to the new Streetview data, I was also able to translate the sketch map on the Hang Dong TAO website into the actual coordinates by spotting the office building in the imagery.

View Larger Map

Google Streetview started in Thailand

2012-03-23T13:12:00.000+01:00

It is just a half year since it was announced that Google will capture imagery with their special cars to make Thailand available in Streetview as well, and now Richard Barrow alerted his readers that Google has already made it available to the public yesterday. In cooperation with the Tourism Authority (TAT), this now allows tourists to visit their destination from their armchair before. Thus the areas covered are (obviously) Bangkok and the two touristic provinces Phuket and Chiang Mai. And not just the cities, but a significant part of these two provinces, even in quite large Chiang Mai a good deal of the main roads to the outlying districts is available. Within Bangkok, even many small Soi have imagery, so one can see a lot of the daily life in the city, including the ugly things like wild garbage pits.

Rommani TAO, Phang Nga

But for me the most interesting part is that the road from Bangkok to Phuket was also photographed, so one can drive on one of the major roads by mouse clicks. And as a lot of the smaller towns are clustered along the road, also several of the administrative offices could now be seen much easier than in the satellite imagery. I have already added the locations of three TAO offices between Surat Thani and Takua Pa into my XML, an area where the no high resolution satellite imagery is available yet. Guess I will be the only one browsing through Streetview for such office buildings, and not odd or funny shots like this discovered in Phuket.

Latest PAO chairmen elections

2012-03-22T13:57:00.000+01:00

Last Sunday, some more province had their elections for the provincial administrative organization (PAO). Sadly I have no real overview on which province will have its election on which date - four years ago there were two rounds, and Buriram was some more weeks earlier already. While the councils have ended their terms after four years and most likely the same provinces will vote together as four years ago, it is much more complicate for the PAO chairman. If any of these leave their office prematurely - because they resign to call for a snap election, they get red-carded for electoral fraud or die, a chairman election is called then and then the new chairman has a full four year term as well. Thus only in those provinces where both the council and the chairmen ended their terms in normal way since the PAO elections were synchronized in 2004, the two will be elected on the same date this year.

The English press only mentioned two chairmen elections from last Sunday - Nakhon Ratchasima getting its first female chairman, and the Democrat party winner of Kanchanaburi being accused of electoral fraud. In the Thai press I found only one additional one, in Suphanburi the incumbent Bunchu Chansuwan (บุญชู จันทร์สุวรรณ) has been the clear winner gaining 70% of the valid votes. On April 7, Phuket will vote for their PAO chairman, and for the most other provinces I have lost track of when the term of the chairman ends and thus have this election soon. As these elections are organized by the provincial election commission (EC), there is no single overview page giving all the dates at one look. And some of the websites of the provincial EC branches are very bad, no data or a long time since the last update. But at least for the three elections last Sunday I was able to find the full numbers, e.g. for Suphanburi at the EC and thus was able to add them into my province XML.

<official title="PAOChairman" name="บุญชู จันทร์สุวรรณ" begin="2012-03-18">
  <election date="2012-03-18">
    <candidates eligiblevoter="641014" invalidvotes="11285" abstainvotes="9096">
      <candidate id="1" name="สมศักดิ์ รักซ้อน" votes="94720"/>
      <candidate id="2" name="อิสระ บุญญาอรุณเนตร" votes="8291"/>
      <candidate id="3" name="บุญชู จันทร์สุวรรณ" votes="247833"/>
    </candidates>
  </election>
</official>

Waritchaphum TAO and municipality area change

2012-03-21T13:04:00.000+01:00

Announced in the Royal Gazette today, the subdistrict municipality Waritchaphum (เทศบาลตำบลวาริชภูมิ) in Sakon Nakhon and the TAO Waritchaphum (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลวาริชภูมิ) have adjusted their boundaries. The change has been published in two documents, one dealing with the TAO [Gazette] and one with the municipality [Gazette] - the second one also including the definition of the new boundary, however sadly unlike other similar announcements no map this time. So the only map I have is the old boundary from the 1956 creation of the sanitary district Waritchaphum. Thus I made no custom drawn Google map this time.

Geographic coordinates in constituency announcements

2012-03-16T13:16:00.000+01:00

So far, in all publication within the Royal Gazette which refer to actual geographic coordinates, these are given in the Military grid reference system (MGRS), omitting the obvious zone identifier at the beginning. Additionally, these are (or at least were) in the Thai Indian reference frame, and not the WGS84 reference frame used by GPS, Google Earth and now also in the maps by the Royal Survey Department like the L7018 1:50.000 maps.

However, in the two latest constituency boundary announcements from the Election Commission, a new system of coordinate references seems to have started. Published on March 3 and approved for publication on February 23, the constituencies for the forthcoming municipal election in Yasothon town (เทศบาลเมืองยโสธร) have been changed [Gazette], modifying the boundaries defined in 2004 [Gazette]. And within this announcement, coordinates given as UTM ๐๔๐๗๖๒๙ ๑๗๔๖๘๓๔. Again omitting the obvious zone 48P, and probably still within the Thai Indian 1975 frame. In fact, MGRS is only a different way of writing down an UTM coordinate, the first two digits of the easting and northing each become a letter. Also notable, the UTM coordinates in this announcement have one digit more in both northing and easting, thus an accuracy of 1 meter instead of 10 meter as used in the MGRS coordinates.

And since it is not that many coordinates, I have done the work again to create a simple map out of them, trying to match the boundaries of the constituencies with the boundaries of the municipality as defined in 1994, when the municipality was created [Gazette].

View Larger Map

New license plate graphics

2012-03-13T13:17:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, a new version of the car license plate graphic for the province Buriram was published in the Royal Gazette. The graphic shows the Khmer temple of Phanom Rung, one of eight historical parks in Thailand. If comparing it with the original graphic announced in 2006 [Gazette], the main difference is that now the rainbow now spreads over the complete building, whereas originally it was only in the left half.

Buriram 2006

Buriram 2012

Together with this announcement, I noticed that I had missed four more similar announcements in the last four months. I have added all these to the license plate Picasa webalbum - which however is still incomplete, I haven't yet extracted and cut all the graphics from the PDF files.

Surin, announced in January [Gazette], updating the graphic from 2006 [Gazette]. In fact, both graphics are almost identical, the graphics in the two announcements only differ in the color saturation.
Sakon Nakhon, announced in November [Gazette], a completely new design compared with the one from 2006 [Gazette].
Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, announced in November [Gazette], changing the design from 2006 [Gazette] by adding an industrial estate at the bottom right, and a second flower to the right.
Mukdahan, also announced in November [Gazette], the first graphic for this province published in the Gazette. Would be interesting to know if there were no graphic license plates in this province so far, or if the publication in the Gazette was just omitted.

TAO council and Muban creations

2012-03-09T13:06:00.000+01:00

The council of the subdistrict administrative organizations (TAO, อบต) consists of two elected councilors for every administrative village (Muban) within the TAO, thus in most cases the double amount of Muban within the subdistrict. Though lately only very few new administrative villages have been created, in such a case something has to happen with the TAO council. On the FAQ page of the Office of Province Election Commission Singburi I have stumbled on a corresponding question with the official answer:

ตั้งหมู่บ้านใหม่ต้องเลือก ส.อบตใหม่หรือไม่
หากมีการประกาศตั้งและกําหนดเขตหมู่บ้านขึ้นใหม่โดยมีการแยกหมู่บ้านออกเป็นสองหมู่บ้าน และจัดตั้งหมู่บ้านขึ้นใหม่กรณีนี้จะมีการเลือกตั้ง ส.อบต. เพิ่มเติมหรือไม่
If create new village have to elect TAO council?
If it has an announcement to set up and specify the area of a village by splitting it into two, does the new village have to elect additional members of the TAO council?

กรณีดังกล่าวจะต้องจัดให้มีการเลือกตั้ง ส.อบต.เพิ่มเติม โดยตรวจสอบก่อนว่าหมู่บ้านเดิมที่ถูกตัดแยก หรือหมู่บ้านที่แยกออกไป มี ส.อบต.ในเขตหมู่บ้านดังกล่าวหรือไม่ เท่าใด หากไม่มี หรือมีไม่ครบ 2 คน ก็จะต้องประกาศให้มีการเลือกตั้ง จนครบ 2 คนตามที่กฎหมายกำหนด เว้นแต่ตำบลใด มี 1 หมู่บ้าน ให้มี ส.อบต. ได้ 6 คน หากมี 2 หมู่บ้านให้มีได้หมู่บ้านละ 3 คน
In this case, one has to check first if the the new village or the village from which it was split off has a councilor residing in the area already. If there are none or less than two, then have to announce an election until it has 2 councilors as required by law, unless there is one Muban which has 6 councilors or two Muban which have three.

Thus, with the creation of a new Muban there has to be a by-election for the TAO council to fill the vacant spaces. A bit strange is the final clause, especially would think one village having 4 councilors would already be enough to make the election unnecessary. However, these last cases can only happen if a councilor moves his residence from one Muban to another, or the areas of two Muban get modified so his residence gets moved into a different administrative village.

And obviously, the new Muban also means that a new village headman has to be elected, and also in that Muban which has no headman - thus in case the headman of the village was was split lives in the area of the newly created Muban, the "old" Muban has to elect.

Province creation draft laws

2012-03-07T13:28:00.000+01:00

While looking for news on the proposed province of Fang, I stumbled on a tweet mention not just this but a total of five proposed new provinces

5 ร่าง พ.ร.บ. ในสภา : พ.ร.บ.จัดตั้งจังหวัดธนบุรี , จังหวัดมีนบุรี, จังหวัดพระนารายณ์, จังหวัดฝาง และ จังหวัดสว่างแดนดิน

It turns out, that the parliament is currently considering or will soon consider draft laws on these five proposals, none of them approved by the cabinet yet. But for each I was able to find a document on the parliament website with many details on the proposals. Most interesting are the proposals to create Thonburi and Minburi province, splitting off those areas most badly hit by last years flooding from the jurisdiction of Bangkok special administrative area (BMA). Even though these areas are somewhat different from the central part of Bangkok, splitting them into separate provinces will only make any coordinated development planning in the huge city more difficult - to me it would even make more sense to incorporate Samut Prakan and Nonthaburi into Bangkok like it was during World War II. Even though the partial rollback of decentralization by weakening BMA probably will attract some interest in certain circles of politicians, I have strong doubts that these two provinces will become reality.

In detail, the five provinces under discussion are:

Fang province (จังหวัดฝาง), covering the districts Fang, Mae Ai and Chai Prakan of Chiang Mai province [Draft law]
Phra Narai (จังหวัดพระนารายณ์), splitting the east of Lopburi province covering the districts Khok Charoen, Chai Badan, Tha Luang, Phatthana Nikhom, Lam Sonthi Sa Bot and Mong Muang, with the center at Chai Badan. Actually, a proposal floating around for many years already - it even already has an entry on the Thai Wikipedia. [Draft law]
Sawang Daen Din (จังหวัดสว่างแดนดิน), splitting the districts Sawang Daen Din, Seka and Bung Khla from Sakon Nakhon province - which looks like a nonsense proposal, as Seka and Bung Khla are in Bueng Kan province, and even don't border Sawang Daen Din. A little later in the rationale for the draft law, even more districts of Bueng Kan are listed, but still not connecting with the main district. [Draft law]
Thonburi (จังหวัดธนบุรี), covering the districts Thonburi, Bangkok Yai, Khlong Sam, Taling Chan, Bangkok Noi, Bang Khun Thian, Phasi Charoen, Nong Khaem, Rat Burana, Bang Phlat, Chom Thong, Bang Khae, Thawi Watthana, Thung Khru and Bang Bon - thus all the districts west of the Chao Phraya, the area which was Thonburi district until its merger with Pha Nakhon in 1972. [Draft law]
Minburi (จังหวัดมีนบุรี), covering the districts Min Buri, Nong Chok, Khlong Sam Wa, Bang Khen, Sai Mai, Don Mueang, and Lak Si. Only roughly the area which the historical Min Buri province had until it was incorporated into Phra Nakhon in 1932. [Draft law]