-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Topographic Maps of Thailand
Date:   Tue, 15 May 2007 05:24:59 +0000
From:   Brendan Whyte <[log in to unmask]>
To:     [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]


News from the Royal Thai Survey Department:

Until recently the only publically available 1:50,000 maps of Thailand was
series L7107.
This was only available for about a third of the country.
The series has lat/long but no UTM grid, was about 15-25 yrs old and was of
low quality: contours sketched in, roads not differentiatd by
sealed/unsealed, lack of detail, etc.
However, for where it was available, it was the best because it was all that
was available.

In January I reported that a cluster of Series L7018 sheets had been made
available for public sale through the Department's office in central
Bangkok. These appeared to cover areas affected by the 2004 Tsunami (Andaman
cost), so I guessed that they were made available for relief agencies and
others.
This series, in the publically available edition, again has Lat/Long, but no
UTM grid, but is 5-15yrs old (possibly even more recent) and is drawn to US
military standards, so contours, roads, features are shown more accurately
and in more detail.
Both series are bilingual.

It appears I was wrong in the reason for the appearance of the sheets. It
seems the Department is slowly releasing more sheets of this series. On my
visit last week about half of the Thai peninsula south of Bangkok was now
available, and staff hoped the entire series would be available by the end
of next year.

Available sheets include in the East:
5334-2&3
5234-1,2,3 (Rayong)
5235-2
5135-2 (Pattaya)
Near Bangkok:
5035-1
Upper peninsula:
4934-1 (Thayang)
4933-4
Lower peninsula:
4830-2,3 (Chumphon) and about half of all sheets south of here, mainly the
west coast (in fact all the est coas and islands except Ranong 4728-4 7
4628-2) but including a number of sheets on the east coast such as the
southern half of Ko Samui (4927-1,2,3,4)
of particular interest is the fact that 2 of the released sheets are on the
Burmese border: series L7017 was never available for areas anywhere near the
border.
however militaryareas, such as south of Pattaya and the deep south of
Thailand are not yet available.
hopefully Bangkok sheets will be released soon!

Brendan Whyte

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