History and Administrative Structure: An Overview
The Kingdom of Thailand has been an independent nation since 1238 AD, and the only country in the Southeast Asia has never been colonized by any other nation.
Since 1932, Thailand is a democratic country, having the King as the Head of the State, governed by a constitutional monarchy under the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2540 (1997), which is regarded as the first people’s constitution of the nation. The King exercises His legislative power through the parliament, the administrative power through the cabinet, and the judicial through the courts.
The national polls elect 500 members of the House of Representatives (with four years term), and 200 Senators of the Senate (with six years term). The Prime Minister as recommended by the Members of the State House is appointed by the King. The House of Representatives is responsible for the legislation, while the Senate votes for the appointment of members of constitutional agencies, and also approves the laws. The King appoints all judges who sit on Thailand’s Supreme Court.
The country’s administrative system comprises three administrative parts: Central Administration, Provincial Administration, and Local Administration. The Central Administration consists of 20 ministries as follows: Office of the Prime Minister, Ministries of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Commerce, Culture, Defense, Education, Energy, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Industry, Information Communications Technology, Interior, Justice, Labor, Natural Resources and Environment, Public Health, Transportation, Science and Technology, Social Development and Human Security, and Tourism and Sports. In each ministry, there are several departments, and attached agencies or equivalent. In total, there are 173 departments under the ministries.
The Provincial Administration supervises the implementation of the functions of the various ministries in the region and province, while the Local Administration has an autonomous administrative authority in each locality under the law.
The country has 75 provinces (or Jangwàt in Thai) and one Metropolitan (Bangkok), and each province is divided into districts (Amphur) and further subdivided into sub-districts (Tambon), villages (Mooban), and municipalities (Thêtsàbaan).
Except for Metropolitan Bangkok and municipalities, the provincial governors are appointed by the Ministry of the Interior, to their four-year term of office. But in November 1985, Bangkok’s governor and the provincial assembly were elected for the first time.
The District Officers are also appointed by the Ministry of Interior, who are then responsible to their provincial governors. The cities are headed by elected mayors, Tambon by elected Tambon heads, and villages by elected village headmen.
Geography and Climate
Thailand has an area of 514,000 sq. km., divided into four geographic and geologic regions: the North, the Mae Sai District, Chaing Rai Province, bordered by Myanmar and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic; the South, in Betong District ,Yala Province, bordered by Malaysia and the Gulf of Thailand; the East, in Phibun Mangsahan District, Ubon Ratchathani province, bordered by the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and the Democratic Kampuchea or Cambodia; and the West, in Mae Sariang District, Mae Hong Son Province, bordered by Myanmar, the Andaman Sea and the Strait of Malacca.
The topography varies from high mountains in the north (series of ranges that extend across Myanmar and South-West China to the south-eastern edges of the Tibet Plateau) to limestone-encrusted tropical islands in the South that are part of the Malay Archipelago.
The climate of Thailand is tropical, and ruled by monsoons from the South and Southeast Asia resulting from the seasonal differences in temperatures. Thailand’s climate can be divided into three major seasons: the dry and relatively cold weather from November to February (much cold in the North and parts of the Northeast); the dry and very hot season from March/April to June; and the rainy season, from July to October. It rains more and longer in the South, hence, the Southern Thailand has only two seasons, a dry and a wet, with smaller differences in temperature between the two.
