Thailand 🇹🇭

Thailand is a country in South-Eastern Asia, one of the 11 entries this site files under that subregion. In formal use it is Kingdom of Thailand. Bangkok is the capital.

Around 71.7 million people live there, placing it 20th of 250 by population — between Germany above it and the United Kingdom below. Measured only against its own subregion, it is 3rd of 11 in size and 4th in population.

By land area it covers 513,120 km², which ranks it 52nd of the 250 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Yemen and just ahead of Spain. Put next to a country most people can picture, it is almost exactly the same size as Spain.

Density comes out at around 140 people per square kilometre, which makes it more crowded than the typical entry on this list. The median across all 250 entries here is about 90 per square kilometre.

Thai is the only official language. No other entry in this dataset lists Thai, so on this list it stands alone.

People from Thailand are called Thais.

Inside Asia it places 11th of 50 by population, and it accounts for 10% of everyone living in South-Eastern Asia.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Thailand ranks 52nd of 250 by area and 20th by population. That works out at 0.34% of the combined land area of all 250 entries and 0.88% of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Thailand in the size ordering are Yemen at 527,968 km² and Spain at 505,992 km², against Thailand's 513,120 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Thailand averages 140 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it middling in density — 90th of the 248 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

Zoom in from the world to South-Eastern Asia and Thailand sits 4th of 11 by population and 3rd by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Vietnam just above and Myanmar just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

Indonesia is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in South-Eastern Asia has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇻🇳 Vietnam
• 🇲🇲 Myanmar
• 🇮🇩 Indonesia

Its reference point sits at 15.0° north and 100.0° east, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 1,670 km from the equator, in what geographers would call tropical latitudes.

Countries on the same parallel, far away in longitude, include Sudan, Chad and Niger.

Its land neighbours number 4: Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia. The largest of them by area is Myanmar, which is also the most populous. Together those neighbours hold about 115.5 million people.

It has both a coastline and land borders, which is the most common arrangement of all.

The Thai baht (THB) is used only in Thailand among the 250 entries on this site. Its own currency is one of the clearest markers of an economy that sets its own monetary policy rather than importing somebody else's.

Thai is listed for Thailand and for no other entry on this site. A language confined to one country is unusual, and it is normally a sign of long isolation or of deliberate revival.

Money there is the Thai baht (฿, THB). No other entry in this dataset uses it, so the currency is specific to Thailand.

Bangkok is the city to remember for this country.

Websites there use the .th domain. The international dialling code is +66. Its ISO codes are th and THA, which is what most databases and flag files use.

As a sovereign state it is among the 193 UN members listed here. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 250 rather than the familiar 195.