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The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XII, 2020

Table 2 Land use and title, 1960 and 2018 (area in million rai)

Title
Land use Total area Private (registered) State (remainder)
1960 2018 1960 2018 1960 2018

farm 74 178 20 114 54 64
built 5 19 3 11 2 8

waste, quarries, water 7 27 0 4 7 23
parks and wildlife 0 67 0 67
reserves
other forest and 249 30 249 30
wilderness
total 321 321 23 129 298 192

Sources: Author's estimates based on statistics published by the Land DevelopmentDepartment,
Department of Lands, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Agricultural Land Reform
Office, Treasury Department and Sophon Chomchan et al.(2008) “Thai Agricultural Land Manage-
ment: from Crisis to Sustainability.” Final research report for Thailand Research Fund, January.

Estimates for 1960 in Table 2 have been derived by backward extrapolation
using crop data to estimate farm use and population series to estimate built use.
The figure for 'other forest and wilderness' is a residual and is considerably higher
than the government's estimate that 60% of total area was ‘forest̓ at the start of
the first national economic development plan. The difference may be explained in
part by the extent of swamps and other undeveloped land that was not regarded
as forest and by the difficulty of determining forest area in mountainous provinces
around the borders with neighbouring countries.

The main conclusion from Table 2 is that around 88% of registered private
land may be classified as farm land, not used for residential, industrial or other
commercial purposes. Nevertheless, as a good portion of farm land in many
provinces has prospects of conversion to other uses in future, the price of farm
land is not unrelated to its potential value for other uses.

Land prices

The Department of Lands does not publish data on value or rent. Estimates
of average prices below have been made after consideration of evidence on the

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