About THAILAND
The unified Kingdom of Thailand was established in the mid-14th century, known as Siam until 1939, and is situated in the heart of Southeast Asia with Bangkok as the capital city. Thailand is divided into four natural regions: the north with mountains and forests, vast rice fields in the Central plain, northeast with its semi-arid farm lands and the south with its tropical islands and long coastline to the south. Thailand at a glance takes in a rich diversity of cultures and traditions.
Overview:
| Country Name: | Kingdom of Thailand. Former: Siam |
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| Government type: | constitutional monarchy |
| Capital name: | Bangkok |
| Geographic coordinates: | 13 45 N, 100 31 E |
| Area: | 513,115 sq. km. |
| Provinces: | 76 |
| Population: | over 65 million |
| Nationality: | Thai |
| Ethnic groups: | Thai 75%, Chinese 14%, Malay (3%) other 11% |
| Religions: | Buddhist 94.6%, Muslim 4.6%, Christian 0.7%, Hindus 0.1 %, other 0.1% |
| Languages: | Thai is the official and native language. English (secondary language in the most tourist areas), ethnic and regional dialects |
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| Local time: | UTC+7 (plus seven hours) |
| Currency of Thailand: | Thai Baht (THB) |
| Exchange rates: | baht per US dollar - 33.599 (2007), 37.882 (2006), 40.22 (2005), 40.222 (2004), 41.485 (2003) baht per Euro - (2007), (2006), (2005), (2004), (2003) |
| Local Current: | 200 volts / 50 cycles; adaptors available in most hotels and resorts all over the country. |
| Date Format | dd-mm-yyyy |
| Drives on the | left |
| Internet TLD: | .th |
| Calling Code: | +66 |
| Climate / Weather |
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Thailand can best be described as tropical and humid for the majority of the country during most of the year. Thailand's climate is tropical and high in both temperature and humidity. The climate dominated by monsoons and it is different depending on the location. Climate change, global warming and the greenhouse effect refer to the same global environmental climate changes. This affected also Thailand and made it a destination to visit all the year around. Thailand's northern climate is determined by three seasons whilst Thailand's southern region has only two. (LINK ZUM WETTER). For western guests there is no such thing as "cool" because it is just cooler than "hot" or drier than humid. The season in northern Thailand are more clearly defined. Between November and May the weather is dry and broken up into the periods November to February and March to May. The later of these two periods has the higher temperatures as the northeast monsoon does not directly affect the northern area of Thailand, which brings cooling breezes from November to February. The southern region of Thailand has only two seasons - the wet and dry. And here we make a difference between the west and east coast. While a southwest monsoon brings rain and sometimes heavy storms between April and October; the east coast will have this weather between September and December. The months during the wet season are becoming within the last 10 years more and more popular travel times. Hotels and Airlines offering better rates and the country is covered in green; during the wet season short showers are likely in the afternoon / evening and only on some days it will rain all day. Thailand prefers to call this time of the year the "green season" instead "raining season". |