Thailand Population

Thailand Population

The Thailand population is a diverse entity comprising of people from different races and ethnicities. The only country in South East Asia never to have been colonized, the kingdom of Siam named itself Thailand in May 11, 1949. In the Thai language, the word Thai means “freedom” and so Thailand means the “Land of the Freedom”. The diverse population of Thailand symbolizes that as well.

Thai is also the name of the majority ethnic group which is again part of the larger Tai ethno linguistic community spread over Thailand and its neighboring South-East Asian countries. They constitute a significant portion of the Thailand population. A multi-ethnic land, almost three-fourths of Thailand’s population is made up of the Thai group and the hill tribes that live primarily in the north.

People of Thailand have a relatively stable culture and common language Tai or Thai. Within the Thai group there are several broad divisions with a variety of dialects.

Besides the 33.7% of population that is Central Thai (including Bangkok), the Northeastern Thai / Lao / Isan comprise 34.2%. The rest is made up of Southern Thai (13.3%) and Northern Thai (18.8%).

Following are the demographic figures for Thailand population:

Population: 63,389,730 (2008)

Population Density: 132 people per sq km

Population Growth Rate: almost 0.64 (2008)

Urban - Rural Population Distribution

Thailand is a farming-dependent country making the transition from an agricultural to an industrial-based economy. Almost 67% of the people of Thailand live in villages, despite the current trend of migration from the villages to the capital Bangkok.

Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand, has more than 6 million people. The other cities which are also populated include Songkhla, Nonthaburi, Chiang Mai and Nakhon Ratchasima.

Ethnicity

75% of the people are Thai. 14% of the population comprises the Chinese, and 3 % of Malays. The Hmong, Karen and other hill tribes together comprise 8%.The Khmer, Laos and Vietnamese live mostly in the border areas. Religion

Buddhism is the majority religion, with Theravada Buddhism being the religious practice most people follow. Almost 94.6% of the population comprises Theravada Buddhists. The Muslims are 4.6% and 0.7% of the entire population practices Christianity. The rest practice other religions.

Workforce

With almost 20.8% of the population under the age of 15, the work force now has almost 37.8 million people. The literacy rate is close to 92.6 %.

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