Cities of Thailand

Thailand divides its municipalities (thesaban) into three levels - cities (thesaban nakhon), towns (thesaban mueang) and townships (thesaban tambon). There are 32 cities as of January 2015. The national capital Bangkok and the special governed city Pattaya are outside these divisions. ("Self governing districts")

Multiple agencies issue population figures. Locally registered Thai populations as compiled by the Department of Land Authority (DLA) aka "Locally Registered Thai Population" These figures reflect the migrant, upcountry, and seasonal nature of Thai labor flows to the capital and tourist hotspots, yet maintain upcountry registration. Figures are very different from those by National Statistics Office (NSO), which conducted the decennnial census counts that attempted to count total resident Thai population + under 1,000 permanent resident foreigners ("Total Thai Population"). Yet neither of these offices release municipal level figures that include non-permanent resident long stay expatriates and figures for contracted foreign ASEAN migrants (major class of labor in very specific cities like Bangkok, Pattaya, Chiang Mai and Phuket, all told ranging from 2-3 million people), though increasingly regularized since 2014. (The NSO did release such projected figures including regularized ASEAN migrants i.e. "total resident population" down to the provincial level for 2017) Note that short stay tourism is in addition to all these numbers, maycertainly add to local feel of crowds and activity but isn't accounted for in any statistic.