~

The reason I want to know, besides general curiosity, is I want to crab at CNN and BBC about their total lack of weather coverage of SE Asia on UBC cable. Either they do not show this area at all or it is where the weather person chooses to stand and I am getting a sore neck from trying to see around them...

Not only that, I am genuinely curious as to how many of us expats there are here. It certainly seems to be a popular place.

I can't find an accurate or reliable number of expats, however, Thailand gets somewhere between 11 and 13 million tourists a year.

You can ask for those numbers at your respective embassies.

Belgium : 2004-2005 : 2000 registered at the embassy. estimated total 3000.

Dont think embassies would be particulary reliable.. Loads of people don't bother to register with their embassy or actively want to have as little as possible to do with any kind of government registration if it can possibly be avoided.

However, of course Thai Immigration Department has a very, VERY accurate number of people on long term n.i. visas. (i..e the real expats. People staying on tourists visas doing visa runs are probably just classified as tourists and rightly so.

Cheers,

Chanchao

According to my embassy report (Japan), there are 32,442 fellow citizens registered as long-term residents (defined as those staying over 3 months) as of Oct 1, 2004. However, as Chanchao suggested, the embassy estimates there are some 40 - 50,000 Japanese citizens residing in Thailand at any given point in time. We also make one of the largest number of foreign visitors entering Thailand at 1.2 million a year (1,212,213 for 2004 according to TAT), second only to Malaysians mostly crossing the southern border on foot.