Amphoe - King Amphoe

Minor districts (King Amphoe, กิ่งอำเภอ — "กิ่ง" literally branch) are set up when the administration of areas remote to the district center gets too uncomfortable for the citizen. Most of the tasks of the Amphoe are transferred to the King Amphoe, but it is still partially a subordinate of the Amphoe it was created from. Once the King Amphoe meets the necessary qualifications to become an Amphoe, it is usually promoted. However, not every newly created Amphoe has to begin as a King Amphoe: if the qualifications are met directly, this phase is skipped. While usually a minor district is upgraded after a few years, in some cases it remained as a minor district for decades. For example Ko Yao was a minor district for 85 years until it was upgraded in 1988. Sometimes a district was downgraded to a minor district as well, like Thung Wa which lost a lot of its population to neighboring La-ngu minor district, so finally La-ngu was upgraded and Thung Wa downgraded. Another example is Chumphon Buri, which was reduced after the more developed part was split off to form a new district and the remaining district was downgraded.

The qualification necessary is a population of at least 30,000 people and at least 5 tambon, or if the area is more than 25 km away from the district office a population of at least 15,000 and 4 tambon.

A minor district is led by a chief officer (Hua Na King Amphoe, หัวหน้ากิ่งอำเภอ).

The Thai word King (กิ่ง) means branch and should not be confused with the English word King. The officially recommended translation is minor district – however they are also quite commonly translated as subdistrict, which is the recommended translation for tambon, and also wrongly suggests that they are at a lower administrative level than the Amphoe.

The Thai government decided to upgrade all remaining 81 minor districts to full districts on May 15, 2007 in order to facilitate their administration. With the publishing in the Royal Gazette on August 24 the upgrade became official.