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

million rai
300 Parks and protected
250 Other forest and unused
200 Waste land and quarries
150 Water (rivers, lakes)
Other agriculture
100
Rice
50
Habitation, built
0
1957 1977 1997 2017

Figure 1 Changing land use from 1957 to 2017

Note: The total land area of Thailand is approximately 320 million rai or just over half a million
square kilometers. 1 million rai equals 1,600 square kilometers or160,000 hectares. 1 hectare
equals 6.25 rai and 1 acre is approximately equal to 2.529 rai. A rai may be divided into 4 ngan
or 400 square wa (1 square wa is equal to 4 square metres).
Sources: Estimates based on Land Development Department statistics of land use, Ministry of
Natural Resources and Environment statistics on parks and protected areas and historical data on
crop area (Ministry of Agriculture and FAO). See Cripps and Khurasee, ‘Globalization, land use
and land title.̓ (2020), working paper for a research programme funded by the Thailand Science
Research and Innovation, TSRI and led by Pasuk Phongpaichit on 'Land Governance for
Development: Land Use and Land Policy Alternatives for the Next 20 Years'.

The primary concerns of the state from the late 19 century were control
th
of borders, exploitation of forest and mineral resources and collection of taxes.
The Forest Law of 1941 established the principle of state ownership of vacant
land and the Land Law which followed in 1954 confirmed that pre-existing
occupation of land by families and communities would in general be accepted and
legitimated by the state but new occupation and settlement must be approved.
Registration of private title by the Department of Lands proceeded slowly in the
1950s and 1960s as documentation of pre-existing occupation was absent or
imprecise. Expansion into vacant land with no registration of title accelerated
while the Royal Forest Department demarcated forest reserve under the 1964
National Reserve Forest Act.

During the period of expansion of land use, prices of new land were still
low and obstacles to occupation of land in frontier areas were as much issues of
security and lifestyle as price or regulation by the state. From the mid-1960s

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Francis Cripps

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