Friday, June 11, 2010

Districts named after Royals

As Thailand is a monarchy and quite the majority is royalist, it's no wonder this love or respect towards the royal family also shows in several geographical entities named after them. Interestingly, only dams have been named after HM the King or the Queen, but none of the districts. But several other members of the royal family have given their names to a district in their honor.

At first, there are the three daughters of the royal family, each having one district named after them.
However none is named after the Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, but I don't know the reason.

Other members of the royal family have already been honored by district names. The older sister of the King, Princess Galyani Vadhana, had lend her name to the district Watthana in Bangkok, and of course also the recently new district Galyani Vadhana in Chiang Mai is of course also named after her. Also the mother of the King has a district named after her - Mae Fa Luang district in Chiang Rai, the name she was most well-known to the hill-tribes in the north. Also, the district Srinagarindra in Phatthalung is named in her honor. A more distant member of the family, Vibhavadi Rangsit has been honored by the district Vibhavadi in Surat Thani province, not that far from where she died when rebels shot down her helicopter in 1977.

One further district is named after a royal, Phaya Mengrai district is named after the founder of the Lanna kingdom of northern Thailand, 700 years ago. Unless I forgot one, the only other central government entity named after a person was the province Phibun Songkhram, the Cambodian province Siem Reap while it was annexed during World War II, named after the prime minister and military dictator of that time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello (or may I say 'sawatdee ka')

I was amazed by your blog. It is very incredible for me to read about Thai administration written by a foreigner who has no any backgrounds (according to your biography) linked with the topic. Well done!!! For me, I'm a research student, studying on decentralisation in Thailand, and try to investigate peoplp's participation at tambon level. I'm very pleased to have found your blong.

Good luck

AK