my wife read something on a thai blog the other day that a thai official was reported to say" udon thani" province and city is the most populated place in thailand for resident foreigners...the number said was 40,000 ..the reporter asked again and said are you sure your not making a mistake probably being 4,000 not she said 40,000 people (foreigners) is correct. what do any of ye think of this figure ??? is this the case ?? i always thought phuket or chonburi provinces would have more

Seems unlikely, but if it was on a Thai blog then it must be true.

Seriously, I suppose there are many different ways of measuring the number of farang 'residents'

Eg- Number registered with land office (yellow book), number of retirement visa renewals, number of Thai wife visa renewals, number of Thai residency certificates, etc.

If Bangkok is not the place with most farang residents then Chonburi (including Pattaya) must be.

Perhaps the more accurate way of determining the number of farang residents would be: The number of dwellings registered in a Thai limited company name.

Edited December 2, 200916 yr by chickenslegs

Would have to agree.

I lived in Udon a few years ago,the small soi where I lived outside of the main town I was the only forienger,went back earlier this year,now there are 4 new houses and about 5 different couples renting there.

The locals who I all know there call it soi farang.

There are a fair few Farang in Udon, but I don't honestly know if it is 40,000. However, I suspect that it may well be the most populated province after Bangkok and Chonburi with Farangs. I didn't see this particular blog or clip on television, but the GF mentioned it to me earlier today.

I think it was Benjamin Disraeli who said " there are lies, dam_n lies, and then there are statistics".

I think it was Benjamin Disraeli who said " there are lies, dam_n lies, and then there are statistics".

27% of TV posters use that quote.

SC

The city of Udon Thani has 140,000 people. The province has 1,400,000 people. No way is anywhere near 3% of the population farang, and that number would be even higher as seen on the street because hundreds of thousands of people from that province are working in other parts of Thailand. 4,000 sounds much closer to the actual number

I think it was Benjamin Disraeli who said " there are lies, dam_n lies, and then there are statistics".

27% of TV posters use that quote.

SC

23% of them are correct - the other 77% have never heard of Disraeli.

But, back on topic - I would guess that a large proportion of Chonburi (Pattaya) falang residents are here on short-term visas and doing visa runs every month or so. So, it all depends on what you define as a foreign resident.

tee nee mo-chit is the programme that this topic was discussed on thai tv....seemingly alot of farangs living outside towns in villages and in farm life etc

Would have to agree.

I lived in Udon a few years ago,the small soi where I lived outside of the main town I was the only forienger,went back earlier this year,now there are 4 new houses and about 5 different couples renting there.

The locals who I all know there call it soi farang.

1 plus 2 x 5 is 10 Foreigners that is almost 40.000

 Pattaya (Chon Buri)  would be higher if they'd quit jumping off balconies!

Actually, I've never thought of Udon as having such a high concentration of foreigners, but when you read things in English the name of the province comes up a lot, so maybe it's accurate.

Edited December 3, 200916 yr by Credo

Lol was just talking to a girl from Udon (before I read this) and she says Udon is crawling with farangs.....and it looks like a buddy of mine will be joining that horde

Have they opened the first McDonalds in Udon Thani yet? I remember it was supposed to be around this time. I trust McDonalds marketing research better than a government drone, 40,000 farang would support a ton of them, and it certainly wouldn't have taken this long for the first. It's just not possible as far as residents go.

I think it was Benjamin Disraeli who said " there are lies, dam_n lies, and then there are statistics".

27% of TV posters use that quote.

SC

23% of them are correct - the other 77% have never heard of Disraeli.

But, back on topic - I would guess that a large proportion of Chonburi (Pattaya) falang residents are here on short-term visas and doing visa runs every month or so. So, it all depends on what you define as a foreign resident.

Let me explain how statistics work....

You should have said "23% of them are correct - the other 65% have never heard of Disraeli".

So, if Udon province has 40,000 resident 'farangs', and the other 74 provinces (incl. Bangkok and Chon Buri) have perhaps half that number on average, then in all of Thailand there should be, err.. more than 1.5 million 'farang'...

Would have to agree.

I lived in Udon a few years ago,the small soi where I lived outside of the main town I was the only forienger,went back earlier this year,now there are 4 new houses and about 5 different couples renting there.

The locals who I all know there call it soi farang.

1 plus 2 x 5 is 10 Foreigners that is almost 40.000

HUH???

tee nee mo-chit is the programme that this topic was discussed on thai tv....seemingly alot of farangs living outside towns in villages and in farm life etc

Sure, but aren't many of them only there for part of the year?

True it would be difficult to find an Isaan village with a population of say minimally 5000 which doesn't have any farang presence.

So much speculation and guesswork. This is precisely why we are required to carry our passports with us: so that we can be identified, rounded up, counted before release into the general population. How else can the government know how many pesky foreigners are stealing land, raping local women and complaining about the price of essential items like wine and cheese?

It's much too difficult to go to Immigration and get a dump from their database.

Was chatting with a friend a couple of weeks ago up here in Nongkhai, and he told me there are about 4000 "registered" expats, not including the holidaymakers/backpackers/passers through, living in Udon Thani. 40,000 does seem a bit over the top.

Thats worth about 1.46 billion baht per year to the Udon economy based on the "average" farrang spending 1000 baht per day.

Guemlum

The original post refers to foreigners not farang as many have read it. When I go to Kanchanaburi immigration it is always busy with Burmese. Maybe other Asian countries are being referred to.

According to the National Statistics Office, in 2005 there were 1263 foreigners registered as living in the Province of Udon Thani (706 male, 557 female).

Chonburi had 5951 (4542 male and 1409 female).

Chiang Mai had 5809 (3971 male and 1838 female).

Songkla had 7634 (4881 male and 2753 female).

Bangkok had 134209 (81785 male and 52424 female).

Whilst we're purely speculating, I'll guess Udon Thani has ten times as many farang as Thai. And pigs fly.

According to the National Statistics Office, in 2005 there were 1263 foreigners registered as living in the Province of Udon Thani (706 male, 557 female).

Chonburi had 5951 (4542 male and 1409 female).

Chiang Mai had 5809 (3971 male and 1838 female).

Songkla had 7634 (4881 male and 2753 female).

Bangkok had 134209 (81785 male and 52424 female).

Thanks lectito.

In the absence of anything else official, can we extrapolate? In 2005, based on above there were 150,000 registered foreigners. So it is not too far fetched that in 2009, there are total 200,000 registered foreigners. Let's ignore the "unregistereds" for now. 200,000 foreigners spend say conservatively an average of 360,000p.a. and presumably some of that income comes from overseas. That's a total spend of 72billion baht p.a. Although I think it is likely to be significantly more.

Gee, lucky a lot of us are either retired, too drunk or too busy chasing girls (and/or boys) to organise ourselves into an effective lobby. Even destitute refugees in Australia have a lobby group. But then they have a unifying factor i.e. misery. Foreigners in Thailand don't even have that to unify us

I heard recently 34,000 foreigners processed long term visas in Chiangmai. I know of at least one that should have been kicked back home!n The 5000 plus in PB's email seems more realistic.

Edited December 3, 200916 yr by jayjayjayjay

Two months ago. I was on my way back from Vientiane to Udon Thani airport... Unfortunately, I missed my midday flight and spend most of the afternoon in "town"... Not knowing the city at all, my taxi-driver suggested me to hang out at Robinson, which is apparently the place to see and to be seen!?!

I did, actually, noticed a large majority of mixed couples hanging around the department store... and for my next visa run, I promised myself to stay over there for at least one night... because I am sure there is more than Robinson to discover

Have they opened the first McDonalds in Udon Thani yet?

Unfortunately - yes.

I received a letter from a government department in Udon about three months ago, which included the statistic that there were 5000+ (can't remember the exact figure) farangs married to Thais in Udon Province.

Of course, not all farangs here are married, and some may no longer be married.

Sounds to me like they are using a calculator from the same batch as was recently used to add up my mountain of shopping, (Total: 158 Bt) after 4 practice runs on the calculator, I was told, 2,365 Bt. Long story short, “Low battery” Great! No loss of face all round!

Statistics, yes, funny thing! Apparently 78.6% of all Statistics are made up.

Have they opened the first McDonalds in Udon Thani yet? I remember it was supposed to be around this time. I trust McDonalds marketing research better than a government drone, 40,000 farang would support a ton of them, and it certainly wouldn't have taken this long for the first. It's just not possible as far as residents go.

Farangs in general seem to have an overrated opinion of their importance to Thailand. From the first McDonald's at Amarin Plaza, Khun Det didn't seem to be chasing Farangs. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of his customers are Thai.

Besides, who really cares how many farangs live where? I certainly don't.

Were they counting foreigners or foreign falangs? The same way many Thais think that there is one giant falang country outside of Thailand that ya'll originate from, many falangs assume all "foreigners" are falangs (especially when talking about economic figures, tourist numbers, FDI, etc.).

Have they opened the first McDonalds in Udon Thani yet? I remember it was supposed to be around this time. I trust McDonalds marketing research better than a government drone, 40,000 farang would support a ton of them, and it certainly wouldn't have taken this long for the first. It's just not possible as far as residents go.

Do you think farangs actually eat Mcdonalds ??