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Thailand is located in Southeastern Asia, bordering the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand, southeast of Burma. Under the Thai monarchy, Thailand since the mid 14th century has been a unified kingdom. Known as Siam until 1939, Thailand has been the only south East Asian nation never to be ruled by a European power. Thailand was a Japanese ally during world war two and helped the Japanese infighting in the south East Asian region. Recently due to political tensions Thailand has been host to a number of military and civilian led coups which saw Thaksin Chinnawat ousted from power in September 2006.
Whenever you travel to a new country it can be daunting and because of this it is often important to have some background information on your destination. Because of this we have provided a general outline of Thailand below. Please be advised that information contained in this page is subject to change without prior warning or knowledge, and as such you should consult an expert for the most accurate details.
Official Name: Kingdom of Thailand
Capital city: Bangkok
Location: South eastern Asia, West of Thailand, East of Cambodia
Size: Thailand is the 60th biggest country in the world in terms of land mass, spanning approximately 514,000 sq km
Climate: Thailand experiences tropical rainy and warm temperatures during May to September and cool and dry during November to March. Thailand overall is very hot and humid.
Population: Thailand’s population is approximately 65.9 million.
Life Expectancy: The average Thai can expect to live to 73.1 years of age during their life time.
Major Illness: There is a high risk of catching major illnesses whilst in Thailand which include bacterial diarrhea, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, malaria, rabies and leptospirosis.
Ethnicities: Thai 75%, Chinese 14%, other 11%
Languages: Thai, English (secondary language of the elite), ethnic and regional dialects
Religion: Buddhist 94.6%, Muslim 4.6%, Christian 0.7%, other 0.1%
Government: Thailand is a constitutional monarchy
Head of State: The current king of Thailand is King Bhumibol Adulyadej
Economy: With a well developed infrastructure, free enterprise economy, and generally pro investment policies, Thailand was one of East Asia’s best performing economies during the periods of 200-2005. Recently however large scale protests, coups and instability in the political arena a lot of foreign investment into the country has been lost as, local and foreign consumer and business confidence in Thailand has been lost, and large scale infrastructure projects by government put on hold. The recent global financial crisis in addition to Thailand’s continued political uncertainty. One industry that has seen substantial growth through the economic woes in Thailand is the export industry, which has seen substantial growth of up to 17.5% over the last few years. Unless Thailand manages to bring its political arena into stability it is likely that the Thai economy will suffer heavy losses of investments to other South East Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines where the political arena is more stable.
GDP: The Thai GDP has a purchasing parity of $553.4 billion
For more information about traveling to Thailand, international health insurance plans that we can offer there, or to receive a free customized quote, please contact one of our dedicated advisors today. |
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