Thailand
- Capital:
- Bangkok
- Continent:
- Asia
- Region(s):
- Southeast Asia
- Largest Cities:
- Bangkok, Samut Prakan, Mueang Nonthaburi
- Abbreviation:
- THA
* As of 6/9/2025
1 birth
Every 55.1 seconds
1 death
Every 48.3 seconds
1 immigrant
Every 19.2 minutes
1 person
Every 9.7 minutes
The last official national census was carried out in Thailand back in 2010 and the country’s official population was declared at 65,479,453. Despite the official figures, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggests that with unregistered individuals added to the final total, the Thailand population in 2014 was actually closer to 70 million, an increase that could also affect future estimates as well. It’s estimated there are 2.2 million illegal and legal migrants in Thailand, including expatriates from developed countries like the United States. Formal estimates put the expatriate population on the lower side of numbers that fall between 500,000 and one million, but those estimates do not take into account those who stay in the country illegally.
There is a diverse range of ethnic groups within the country but for the purposes of the overall Thailand population, these have only really been separated into three main groups.
Estimates claim that of the total population, 75% were Ethnic Thai, 14% were Thai Chinese, and 3% were ethnically Malay. The remainder of the population falls into small minority groups including hill tribes, Khmers and Mons.
The official language of Thailand is Thai, with over 90% of the population using the language daily in their home and work lives.
The life expectancy for an average Thai citizen is also growing but there are many threats to the population. It’s widely accepted that AIDS has reached epidemic proportions in this country and in the present day, at least 700,000 Thais are HIV positive or have AIDS. This represents 2% of the male population and 1.5% of the female population. By comparison, the global percentage of people living with AIDS is about 0.8% as of 2014.
Death rates in relation to AIDS seem to attract wildly different claims and the figures vary greatly between 30,000 and 50,000 AIDS related fatalities every year.
Overall, however, education in public health is believed to have led to a rise in life expectancy and 2013 WHO estimates suggest that this currently stands at 75.0 years for the total population which can be divided into 71.5 years for males and 78.8 years for females.
Thailand ranks 46th in the World Happiness Report of 2018 with a rating of 6.072. When we examine the health care expenditures versus the numbers of physicians and beds available, we see 6.5% of the GDP being spent on the healthcare sector, with only .47 professional physicians available per 1,000 residents and only 2.1 beds available per 1,000 individuals. Turning to the improved access to clean drinking water and improved sanitation facilities, we see 97.8% of the population with access to clean water, and 93% of the population with improved access to sanitation.
The population of Thailand has maintained fairly steady and significant growth, particularly since the turn of the 20th century. In the century between 1900 and 2000, Thailand went from a country with around 10,000,000 citizens to having over 60 million people living there.