SOCIOCULTURAL
A unified Thai Kingdom was in the mid-14th century. Known as Siam until 1939, Thailand is the only Southwest Asian country never to have been taken over by a European power. A bloodless revolution in 1932 led to a constitutional monarchy. In alliance with Japan during World War2, Thailand ally following the conflict.
GEOGRAPHY
Climate: Tropical; rainy, warm, cloudy southwest monsoon (mid May to September); dry, cool northeast monsoon (November to mid-March); southern isthmus always hot and humid.
Natural resources: Tin, rubber, natural gas, tungsten, tantalum, timber, lead, fish, gypsum, lignite, fluorite, arable land
Land use: Arable land 32.88%, permanent crops 7%, other 60.12%
Geography note: Controls only land route from Asia to Malaysia and Singapore
PEOPLE
Population 64,865,523 (July 2004)
Population growth rate 0.91% (2004)
Languages Thai, English ( secondary language of the elite ), ethnic and regional dialects
GOVERNMENT
Government type Constitutional monarchy
Legal system Based on civil law system, with influence of common law; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction
ECONOMY
Thailand has a free-enterprise economy and welcomes foreign investment.
Gross domestic product growth in the advanced econ...
Quarterly Gross Domestic Product (year-on-year gro...
English: World GDP growth rate and GDP growth rate...Exports feature textiles and footwear, fishery products, rice, rubber, jewelry, automobiles, computers and electrical appliances. Thailand has recovered from the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis and was one of East Asia's best performers in 2002. Increased consumption and investment spending and strong export growth pushed GDP growth up to 6.3% in 2003 despite a sluggish global economy. The highly popular government has pushed an expansionist policy, including major support of village economic development.
Economics growth
Nowadays many countries use GDP growth to measure their economics growth. Gross domestic product (GDP) is value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year. As explained before that Thailand was hit by regional crisis in 1997-98, the crisis caused the fluxtuation of Thailand GDP as...