The Thai addressing system is used to identify a specific location in

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

. It generally corresponds closely with the

administrative divisions of Thailand Thailand is a unitary state, which means the territories are separated into central co-dependencies, with the central government deciding everything for the provinces. The kingdom is separated into multiple levels including regions, provinces, a ...

Address parts

With the exception of the initial plot and house number, Thai addresses are mostly in the Western order, starting from the smallest unit and progressing to the largest. The general format, as codified by the

Universal Postal Union The Universal Postal Union (UPU, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations and facilitates a uniform worldwide postal system. It has 192 member states and is headquartered in Be ...

, is: :Plot/House number, Village :Road :Subdistrict, District :

Province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Postal Code :THAILAND

Plot, house and village

Thai ''

muban Muban (; , ) is the lowest Administrative divisions of Thailand, administrative sub-division of Thailand. Usually translated as 'village' and sometimes as 'hamlet (place), hamlet', they are a subdivision of a tambon (subdistrict). , there were 74 ...

'' (หมู่บ้าน) correspond only loosely to actual settlements, which may well have separate names, but these are not used for addresses. They are divided into groups ''mu'' (หมู่), often transliterated ''moo'' or abbreviated "M", which are divided into numbered plots (บ้านเลขที่ ''ban lek ti''), which may (or may not) contain multiple houses. All numbers are assigned in the order they were originally registered, and generally do not follow any geographical or logical sequence. In cities, a large named building often plays the role of "village", which is then followed by the apartment number.

Road

Roads do not correspond with administrative divisions, and they are consequently the most complicated and non-standardized part of a Thai address. Main thoroughfares are ''thanon'' (ถนน), often abbreviated "Th", glossed as "road" or "Rd" in English, or omitted entirely. Smaller streets are ''

soi In Thailand, a ''soi'' ( ) is a side street that branches off of a major street (''thanon'', ). An alley is called a ''trok'' (). Overview Sois are usually numbered, and are referred to by the name of the major street and the number, as in "S ...

'' (ซอย), which are numbered in increasing order, although odd and even sois are on different sides of the street. New sois added between old ones may receive annexes: for example, soi 7/1 would be located between soi 7 and soi 9. Small alleys may be called ''trok'' (ตรอก) instead of ''soi''. Large sois usually have names and are then also referred to as ''thanon'', e.g. ''Thanon Ekkamai'' for Sukhumvit Soi 63, and these can have their own numbered sub-sois. Consequently Soi 4 off Soi 63 off Sukhumvit Rd can be referred to as any of ''Thanon Ekkamai Soi 4'', ''Ekkamai Soi 4'' or even ''Soi Ekkamai 4''. For redundancy, both the name and the number of the large soi are sometimes added, as in ''Soi Ekkamai 4, Sukhumvit 63 Rd'', where both ''Ekkamai'' and ''Sukhumvit 63'' refer to the large soi.

District

Districts are called ''

amphoe An amphoe (sometimes also ''amphur'', , )—usually translated as "district"—is the second level administrative subdivision of Thailand. Groups of ''amphoe'' or districts make up the Provinces of Thailand, provinces, and are analogous to count ...

'' (อำเภอ), divided into subdistricts, ''

tambon ''Tambon'' (, ) is a local governmental unit in Thailand. Below district (''amphoe'') and province ('' changwat''), they form the third administrative subdivision level. there were 7,255 tambons, not including the 180 ''khwaeng'' of Bangkok, whi ...

'' (ตำบล). In

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

only, ''amphoe'' and ''tambon'' are replaced with ''

khet Khet may refer to: * KHET, a PBS station in Hawaii * ''Khet'' (game), an abstract strategy game *Heth (letter) or Khet, a letter of many Semitic alphabets *Khet, the Thai word for district in Bangkok and in some municipalities A municipality is ...

'' (เขต) and ''

khwaeng A ''khwaeng'' (, ) is an administrative subdivision used in the fifty districts of Bangkok and a few other city municipalities in Thailand. Currently, there are 180 ''khwaeng'' in Bangkok. A ''khwaeng'' is roughly equivalent to a ''tambon'' in ot ...

'' (แขวง) respectively.

Postal code

The postal code follows the province ''changwat'' (จังหวัด), or the special administrative region of Bangkok. Thai postal codes consist of five digits, where the first two digits identify the province, the third digit the district, and the remaining two the subdistrict. There are however several cases where more than one district shares the same third digit, or some ''muban'' have the postcode of a neighboring subdistrict. Nine-digit codes in the format ''NNNNN-NNNN'' are possible, but rarely used.

Examples

*In practice, addresses in urban areas typically omit the village number, while rural addresses often have only the village number without a road. Often only one of town and district is used, since one or the other is usually sufficiently specific. For example, the address of the headquarters of Thailand Post is: :Thailand Post Co., Ltd. :111 Chaengwatthana Road :Laksi :Bangkok 10210-0299 :Thailand This corresponds to house number 111, Chaengwatthana Road, Thung Song Hong subdistrict (omitted), Laksi District, Bangkok Province. *A coworking space in a small street in central Bangkok has the following address: :19 Soi Ekkamai 4 :Sukhumvit 63 Rd. :Phra Khanong Nuea :Watthana :Bangkok 10110 This corresponds to house number 19 in the fourth soi off Sukhumvit Soi 63 (Ekkamai), Phra Khanong Nuea subdistrict, Watthana district, Bangkok Province. *A typical address in

Phuket Phuket (; , , or ''Tongkah'') is one of the Southern Thailand, southern Provinces of Thailand, provinces (''changwat'') of Thailand. It consists of the island of Phuket, List of islands of Thailand, the country's largest island, and another 3 ...

might be: :7/22 M.5, Soi Ta-iat, Chaofa West Rd., T. Chalong :A. Phuket 83130 Thailand This corresponds to house 22 on plot 7, ''Mu'' 5, Ta-iat lane, Chaofa West Road, Chalong Sub-district, Mueang Phuket District. *The address of a guesthouse in rural Thailand is: :144/4 M.5 :Ban Tham :Chiang Dao :Chiang Mai 50170 :Thailand This corresponds to house 4 on plot 144, ''Mu'' 5, Muban Ban Tham, Chiang Dao District, Chiang Mai Province.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Addressing System Communications in Thailand Thai