Yala province is in southern Thailand. The highest point of the Sankalakhiri Range (Northern Titiwangsa Mountains), the 1,533-meter (5,030 ft)-high Ulu Titi Basah (ฮูลูติติปาซา), is on the Thai/Malaysian border between Yala province and Perak.[7] The total forest area is 1,455 km2 (562 sq mi) or 32.5 percent of provincial area.[8]
National parks
There are three national parks, along with two other national parks, make up region 6 (Pattani branch) of Thailand's protected areas.
Bang Lang National Park, 261 km2 (101 sq mi)[9]: 88
Namtok Sai Khao National Park, 70 km2 (27 sq mi)[9]: 110
Toponymy
The name "Yala" is the Thai transliteration of the Malay word "Jala" (Jawi: جالا), meaning "net", which was in turn derived from Sanskrit (Devanagari: जाल). The province is also known as "Jala" in Patani Malay language.
Historically, Pattani province was the centre of the Sultanate of Patani, a semi-independent Malay kingdom that paid tribute to the Thai kingdoms of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya. After Ayutthaya fell under Burmese control in 1767, the Sultanate of Patani gained full independence, but under King Rama I (reigned from 1782 to 1809), the area was again placed under Siam's control in 1785 and made a mueang. In 1808, Mueang Pattani was split into seven smaller mueang including Yala and Reman.[10]
There is a separatist movement in Yala, which after being dormant for many years, emerged again in 2004 and has become increasingly violent. Eight bombs exploded in the province over two days, on 6–7 April 2014. The bombings resulted in one death and 28 injuries, as well as damage to a warehouse estimated at 100 million baht.[11]
The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 2014 advised its citizens to only undertake essential travel in the province, while the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recommends that travellers completely avoid the province.[12][13]
Together with Narathiwat, Pattani and Satun, Yala is one of the four provinces of Thailand with a Muslim majority. About 72 percent of the people are Malay-speaking Muslims and mainly live in rural locations. The remainder are Thai and Thai Chinese Buddhists, who live in towns and cities.
Symbols
The provincial seal shows a miner with simple mining tools including hoes, crowbars, and baskets. Yala was originally a mining town with tin and tungsten ores.[15]
Khela mahseer (Tor douronensis) is the provincial fish, since it is a rare fish that can only be found in the lower southern region. Currently, Yala Provincial Fisheries Office is able to breed.[16]
Administrative divisions
Map of eight districts
Provincial government
Yala is divided into eight districts (amphoe), which are further divided into 56 subdistricts (tambon) and 341 villages (muban).
As of 26 November 2019 there are:[17] one Yala Provincial Administration Organisation (ongkan borihan suan changwat) and 16 municipal (thesaban) areas in the province. Yala has city (thesaban nakhon) status and Sateng Nok and Betong have town (thesaban mueang) status. Further 13 subdistrict municipalities (thesaban tambon). The non-municipal areas are administered by 47 Subdistrict Administrative Organisations - SAO (ongkan borihan suan tambon).[2]
Transportation
Yala Railway Station
In January 2022, Thailand's transport ministry completed the 1.9 billion bahtBetong Airport. It opened in March 2022.[18][19] Designed to handle 300 arrivals per hour, it is projected to serve 300,000 per year, which will later increase to over one million passengers per year, generating three billion baht for the district. Nok Air, Bangkok Airways, and Malaysia's Firefly Airlines had plans to fly to Betong in 2019.[20] However, Nok Air was the only airline to operate flights to Betong; the service was terminated after 28 October 2022 due to high operational cost.[21]
The province lies on Route 410 (Pattani–Betong Highway), which runs from Pattani through Yala and Betong before passing through the Thailand-Malaysia Border.
Province Yala, with an HAI 2017 value of 0.5183 is "low", occupies place 72 in the ranking.
Since 2003, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Thailand has tracked progress on human development at sub-national level using the Human achievement index (HAI), a composite index covering all the eight key areas of human development. National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) has taken over this task since 2017.[3]
^ ab"รายงานสถิติจำนวนประชากรและบ้านประจำปี พ.ศ.2561" [Statistics, population and house statistics for the year 2019]. Registration Office Department of the Interior, Ministry of the Interior (in Thai). 31 December 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
^""พลวงชมพู"ปลาประจำจังหวัดยะลา" ["Khela mahseer" the Yala provincial fish]. Kom Chad Luek (in Thai). 2018-07-01. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
^"Number of local government organizations by province". dla.go.th. Department of Local Administration (DLA). 26 November 2019. Retrieved 10 December 2019. 45 Yala: 1 PAO, 1 City mun., 2 Town mun., 13 Subdistrict mun., 47 SAO.
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