Welcoming the 76th province Bueng Kan

The new province Bueng Kan is now officially there, making it the 76th province of Thailand. Yes, the 76th, because Bangkok is not a province, but a special administrative area - only because Bangkok is at the same administrative level as a province most of the time it is sloppily counted as a province as well.

In a very short article Bangkok Post reports on the inauguration celebration.

Interior Minister Chavarat Charnvirakul on Wednesday morning presided over the inauguration of the new province of Bung Kan, now officially the country's 77th province.
Mr Chavarat and Deputy Agriculture Minister Supachai Phosu joined thousands of people at a ceremony to open the city gate.
[...]
Sompong Arunrojpanya has been appointed first governor of the new province, which will have two MPs.

And probably not only Bangkok Post, but also all of the Thai media reported it to be the 77th province. On the English Wikipedia I have already reverted three times edits which claim Thailand to have 77 provinces, even though in the next sentence of the articles the special status of Bangkok is explained. One user even was so smart to modify the HTML comment I added after the number which I added to prevent this from happening, thinking there are 77 provinces plus Bangkok...

The first governor is Sompong Arunrojpanya (สมพงษ์ อรุณโรจน์ปัญญา), who was previously deputy province governor in Phitsanulok.