How many people are there on Samui?

[robsamui]

For a long time now I've been trying to calculate this, with little success, just out of personal interest.

One problem is the lack of current information - most online sources are several years out of date (ie no reference to the flood of Chinese in the last 3 years).

Another huge problem is that the local authorities seem to have no idea whatsoever how many "aliens" are living on the island either full time, or for the majority of the year.

Figures exist for the incoming tourists. There's information based on the number of registered House Books (tabien baan). But these don't take into account the many thousands of "temporary" Thai workers who are registered elsewhere, many of whom are actually working here full time and living here semi-permanently.

In addition to the official tabien baan numbers, then there is the problem of the statistics (which are probably far from the truth) of:
1. Thais who are registered elsewhere (as mentiond)

2. Migrant workers

3a. Foreigners who come on extended tourist visas and stay for 6 months of the year, many keeping a rented house of apartment full time

3b. Foreigners who continually "hop" in and out for 4 months then return, many keeping a rented house of apartment full time
3c. Foreigners who come on transit visas and do border runs for as long as they can

3d. Foreigners who have official long term visas

4. Holiday visitors: even though the average stay is only 5 days, there is a constant stream of them totaling over 1 million a year. This means that on any one day there is quite probably 100,000 of them walking about on the streets.

The numbers in each of these cases exist. They are all on sheets of paper in a government office somewhere. The immigration office, although it stores individual information digitally, appears to have no co-ordinated linked central database where all the information is kept, and which can be cross-reference,examined and extrapolated.

 

So does anyone have an insight into - right at the moment, today - how many people there are on Koh Samui? 

 

Edited September 18, 2016 by robsamui

[islandguy]

Could you explain this a little more?

 

 

4. Holiday visitors: even though the average stay is only 5 days, there is a constant stream of them totaling over 1 million a year. This means that on any one day there is quite probably 100,000 of them walking about on the streets

 

5 million visitor (on Samui) days divided by 365 is less than 14,000

[khunPer]

Quote

...  the local authorities seem to have no idea whatsoever how many "aliens" are living on the island either full time, or for the majority of the year ...

Immigration gives a number for Visa-extension, for example based on Retirement. If you extend your annual stay about same time every year, you will notice that the number slightly increase – i.e. there must be more folks on extended stay, if they begin from scratch every new calendar year. I've got no clue at all if the number is for a specific category – i.e. extension based on retirement etc. – or it's the total number of extensions. It shall be about 4,000 to 4,500 a year in "my category", which is "retirement". The Immigration must have some stats, including extensions granted on basis of marriage, and Work Permit.

 

Official registrations on Samui is between 50,000 and 60,000 – personally I would think the total number is around 150,000 inclusive of all unregistered, and at any time number of tourists; but just a guess...

[smokie36]

136485.

[khunPer]

22 minutes ago, smokie36 said:

136485.

I like geeks that are completely up-to-date with specific facts...

[robsamui]

8 hours ago, islandguy said:

Could you explain this a little more?

 

 

4. Holiday visitors: even though the average stay is only 5 days, there is a constant stream of them totaling over 1 million a year. This means that on any one day there is quite probably 100,000 of them walking about on the streets

 

5 million visitor (on Samui) days divided by 365 is less than 14,000
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They don't all come at once! Nor does 1/365th of one million (not 5 million) visitors all arrive on one day! (That would be in excess of 2,700 a day). Therefore if there are a million visitors they will be comparatively evenly spread over the months and weeks.

Taking it that in any one month there is an average of one million tourists divided by 12 (months), it is logical to suppose that somewhere between 80,000 ad 100,000 tourists are here in that month. As all tourists arrivals and departures overlap continually (ie 100,000 do not all arrive together on the first day of every month, then all stay one week and leave) then it is similarly logical to suppose that on any one day there are between 80,000 and 100,000 tourists staying on Samui,  as khunPer has similarly estimated in post No. 5.

 

Edited September 18, 2016 by robsamui

[Mole]

Actually, tourists don't arrive evenly spread throughout the year. We have July-August when the Europeans have their summer vacation, which will create a minor high season. Then we have the major peak season from 15 December - 15 January. Then high season from 16 January - end of March.

So throughout the year, the number of tourists will wary according to season.

 

In additional, I don't quite understand the way your calculation works.

1 million tourists in 1 year equals average 2740 per day. You are right in assuming that arrival and departure dates doesn't overlap. I still don't understand how you can turn 2740 average people per day to 80-100 thousand.

 

They may ARRIVE in average 2740 per day, but don't forget that they also DEPART 2740 in average per day as well! Even if their stay do overlap, there will be about equal amount of people who arrived who will also have departed!

[Mole]

We have the Chinese tourists which come pretty much evenly spread year round. Their numbers are increasing day by day, and since I work in the hospitality industry, I for one welcome the increase of the Chinese. Already today, there are lots of businesses here in Samui which would probably have not been able to survive through low season periods, so the Chinese does give a welcomed support for nearly all businesses in Samui. Most businesses has relations to another, so in the end the income which the Chinese brings will trickle down to everybody.

 

There are also huge number of Burmese migrant workers, both registered and unregistered. There is still a labor shortage in Samui, so there is still a demand for the Burmese.

Google throws up 14 thousand registered for Suratthani. Unregistered, probably about same amount.

 

Many Thai nationals who live on this island are registered elsewhere in their house registration (such as me).

I would guess that the number is about equal to registered residences.

[evadgib]

There's a disaster dept listed  among local authorities. They surely have an all up figure re how many they're expecting to feed/hydrate/protect/account for; given the amount of practice they've had in recent years.

 

HTH

Edited September 19, 2016 by evadgib

[Birdman]

I would say 150.000 workers from outside, expats and non registered Thais plus 65.000 registered Samuians plus  the tourists. I would say the average length of  stay of tourists is ~ 5-7days. 5 for Chinese, the majority, 3-5 for ASEAN tourists, 5-10 for other Asians and 5-21 for Farang tourists.

Edited September 19, 2016 by Birdman

[islandguy]

21 hours ago, robsamui said:

Taking it that in any one month there is an average of one million tourists divided by 12 (months), it is logical to suppose that somewhere between 80,000 ad 100,000 tourists are here in that month. As all tourists arrivals and departures overlap continually (ie 100,000 do not all arrive together on the first day of every month, then all stay one week and leave) then it is similarly logical to suppose that on any one day there are between 80,000 and 100,000 tourists staying on Samui,  as khunPer has similarly estimated in post No. 5.

 

If 100,000 people (individuals) are here during a 30 day period and the average length of stay is 5 days, that would be 500,000 'visitor days' during that month. To get a per day number divide by the number of days (30). Note that 1,000,000 divided by 12 is not 100,000, so this leads to a different number than 'less than 14,000' from my prior post.

 

I also have often wondered about the answer to this question.I usually guess about 250,000 people on the island.

[samuibeachcomber]

On 18/09/2016 at 10:12 PM, smokie36 said:

136485.

 

keep smoking!

[robsamui]

On 9/18/2016 at 4:28 PM, islandguy said:

If 100,000 people (individuals) are here during a 30 day period and the average length of stay is 5 days, that would be 500,000 'visitor days' during that month. To get a per day number divide by the number of days (30). Note that 1,000,000 divided by 12 is not 100,000, so this leads to a different number than 'less than 14,000' from my prior post.

 

Hmm - I don't think it's quite that simple, as Mole has pointed out! 

The problem is (and the reason I posted this in the first place) nobody KNOWS. There are no official figures. I was wondering if my unofficial speculation about population might be straightened out by something more solid. But it looks like everyone else has to try to make informed guesses, too!

Edited September 20, 2016 by robsamui
It's Tuesday.

[jamesbrock]

The latest official population figures (2015) can be found here (in Thai): http://stat.dopa.go.th/stat/statnew/statTDD/views/showZoneData.php?rcode=8493&statType=1&year=58

 

Officially the population of Thesaban Nakhon Ko Samui last year was 64,720 - whether this includes foreigners or Thais registered elsewhere is anyone's guess. In 2011, the last time I checked, it was 61,318.

 

Population of each sub-district (2011 figures in parentheses):

• Tambon Bo Phut - 18,471 (18,169)
• Tambon Ang Thong - 12,372 (10,763)
• Tambon Maret - 8,900 (8,877)
• Tambon Mae Nam - 8,719 (8,220)
• Tambon Taling Ngam - 6,003 (5,573)
• Tambon Lipa Noi - 5,228 (4,945)
• Tambon Na Mueang - 5,027 (4,771)

 

For interest's sake, the official population of Amphoe Ko Phangan is 9,671 (8,977)

• Tambon Ko Pha-ngan - 4,243 (4,061)
• Tambon Ban Tai - 3,202 (3,210)
• Tambon Ko Tao - 2,226 (1,706)

 

Edit: I understand that this does not answer your question...

Edited September 21, 2016 by jamesbrock