Thailand adopted the metric system on 17 December 1923.Minutes of the 7th General Conference on Weights and Measures
1927, page 69 However, old Thai units are still in common use, especially for measurements of land. Before

metrication Metrication or metrification is the act or process of converting to the metric system of measurement. All over the world, countries have transitioned from local and traditional units of measurement to the metric system. This process began in ...

, the traditional system of measurement used in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

employed

anthropic units The term anthropic unit (from Greek '' άνθρωπος'' meaning human) is used with different meanings in archaeology, in measurement and in social studies. In archaeology In archaeology, ''anthropic units'' are strata, or deposits of materi ...

. Some of these units are still in use, albeit standardised to SI/metric measurements. When the

Royal Thai Survey Department The Royal Thai Survey Department ( th, กรมแผนที่ทหาร) is a Special Services Group of Headquarters, Royal Thai Armed Forces () tasked to conduct land and aerial survey, geodesy and geophysics works in Thailand. The headqu ...

began

cadastral survey Cadastral surveying is the sub-field of cadastre and surveying that specialises in the establishment and re-establishment of real property boundaries. It involves the physical delineation of property boundaries and determination of dimensions, ar ...

in 1896, Director R. W. Giblin, F.R.G.S., noted, "It so happens that 40 metres or 4,000 centimetres are equal to one ''sen''," so all cadastral plans are plotted, drawn, and printed to a scale of 1:4,000. The square ''wa'', ''ngan'' and ''rai'' are still used in measurements of land area. The ''baht'' is still used as a unit of measurement in gold trading. However, one ''baht'' of 96.5% gold bullion is defined as 15.16 grams rather than the generic standard of 15 grams. The ''baht'' has also become the name of the currency of Thailand, which was originally fixed to the corresponding mass of silver.

List of units

References

{{systems of measurement

Customary units of measurement

Units of measurement A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude of a quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same kind of quantity. Any other quantity of that kind can be expressed as a multi ...

Thai culture