RECENT INTERNAL POPULATION MOVEMENT IN THAILAND¹

ABSTRACT

Despite the vigorous economic development and rapid population growth in recent years, the process of internal redistribution in Thailand in the period 1955–1960 affected less than four percent of the population. The pattern of internal movement is nevertheless highly complicated and the 1960 Census data contain more than a thousand discernible migration streams among the seventy-one chawads (provinces, also popularly transcribed as changwats). The identification of migration regions provides a means whereby local moves and migration can be differentiated and separately analyzed. Thus, the majority of those who changed their chawad of residence during the quinquennium under review actually moved within distinctly interrelated groups of chawads constituting the individual migration regions. Most chawads with a substantial population gain had no more than a local appeal and attracted relatively few from beyond the regional boundary. Although an overall relationship cannot be established between population change and physiologic density even in this predominantly agricultural country, local movements appear to be governed to a large extent by intraregional differences in population density. On the other hand, interregional migration can be resolved into the two basic components of metropolitanization and interrural shifts. Regional population balance is strongly affected by the continuing centripetal flow towards Greater Bangkok and there is reason to believe that this trend will likely become even more significant. The pattern of up-country population redistribution is basically determined by the voluminous immigration into the Upper Chao Phrya Plain in the Center and the equally considerable emigration from the Nam Mun Valley in the Northeast.