Friday, July 8, 2011

Subdistrict boundary definition for Tha Faek, Tha Pla, Uttaradit

Last week, an announcement with the definition of subdistrict boundaries was published in the Royal Gazette [Gazette]. It only contains the boundary of the subdistrict Tha Fak (ตำบลท่าแฝก), Tha Phla district, Uttaradit. The subdistrict is divided into 9 administrative villages (Muban) and administrated by the TAO Tha Fak.

As usual with this style of announcements, this one also starts with the list of villages within the subdistrict, and then describes the boundary to the north, east, south and west. Most helpful are of course the geographical coordinates within this description, given in the Thai MGRS system. These ones I could easily display in a map, whereas the natural boundary between these points is rather difficult to draw just from the satellite image - which is part even isn't hires yet. At least, thanks to the change of font in the PDFs now Google translate can create an almost understandable automatic translation, so I know that e.g. between the 912m peak of Phu Khen at PV 894956 and the 934m high summit at PV 881940 the subdistrict boundary follows the ridge in southwest direction. But even without the lines between the defined points, it is possible to get an idea of the extend of the subdistrict because there are quite a lot of these points in the definition. In the map below using the terrain display it is even possible to see the natural boundaries.

I gets most interesting when comparing the current definition with the earlier one from 1997. That one has less points in the definition, but nevertheless the difference between the two borders is easily visible - in the northwest of the subdistrict an chunk of approximately 50 km² is added to Tha Fak from Nang Phaya. So this announcement is not just a more detailed definition of the boundary, it also changes the boundary in part.



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