Subdivisions of Thailand - Local Administration

Local Administration

Additionally to these subdivisions, there are also cities and towns, which take over some of the responsibilities of the districts and communes on the area covered by the municipality. These all have an elected board and an elected mayor.

There are three different levels of municipalities (Thai: เทศบาล):

• thesaban nakhon (city): More than 50,000 citizens
• thesaban mueang (town): More than 10,000 citizens - or a provincial capital
• thesaban tambon (subdistrict municipality): More than 5,000 citizens

Despite its name, a thesaban tambon does not necessarily coincide with a single tambon.

In addition to the population numbers the municipalities need to have enough tax revenues for the administration to be able to execute the offices of administrations.

Towns and cities are subdivided into chumchon (communities), which are equivalent to the villages (muban) of rural areas. Nonthaburi and Chiang Mai are the only two municipalities that have an additional tier of administration, as they group their chumchon in khwaeng.

Some towns have the word Nakhon in their name, e.g. Nakhon Ratchasima Province has one district named Amphoe Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima, as well as the city Thesaban Nakhon Nakhon Ratchasima.

The City of Pattaya is a metropolitan municipality, it is a specially administrated area. Also the metropolitan city of Bangkok (officially called the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration) is a metropolitan municipality. As of 2010, the city of Mae Sot is planned to be converted into a special administrative area as well.

For areas which does not reach the mandatory conditions there exists another lower level of local administration named Subdistrict administrative organization (SAO, องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบล). These usually cover a complete subdistrict (Tambon), but may also cover more than one subdistrict or share a subdistrict with a municipality.