Population Distribution
The population is mostly rural, concentrated in the rice-growing areas of the central, northeastern, and northern regions. However, as Thailand continues to industrialize, its urban population - 45.7% (in 2010, according to NESDB) of the total population, principally in the Bangkok area - is growing.
Thailand's highly successful government-sponsored family planning program has resulted in a dramatic decline in population growth from 3.1% in 1960 to around 0.4% today. Life expectancy also has risen, a positive reflection of Thailand's efforts in executing public health policies. However, the AIDS epidemic has had a major impact on the Thai population.
Today, over 700,000 Thais are HIV or AIDS positive - approximately 2% of adult men and 1.5% of adult women. Every year, 30,000-50,000 Thais die from HIV or AIDS-related causes. Ninety percent of them aged 20–24, the youngest range of the workforce. The situation could have been worse; an aggressive public education campaign in the early 1990s reduced the number of new HIV infections from 150,000 to 25,000 annually.
The 1997 constitution mandated 12 years of free education, however, this is not provided universally. Education accounts for 19% of total government expenditures.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Thailand
Famous quotes containing the words population and/or distribution:
“O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Classical and romantic: private language of a family quarrel, a dead dispute over the distribution of emphasis between man and nature.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)