Si Racha
ศรีราชา
Town municipality
Si Racha Town Municipality
View of Si Racha town
View of Si Racha town
Official seal of Si Racha
Seal
Si Racha is located in Bay of Bangkok
Si Racha
Si Racha
Location of Si Racha on the Gulf of Thailand
Si Racha is located in Thailand
Si Racha
Si Racha
Si Racha (Thailand)
Coordinates: 13°10′26″N 100°55′48″E / 13.174°N 100.930°E / 13.174; 100.930
CountryThailand
ProvinceChonburi
DistrictSi Racha district
Government
 • TypeTown municipality
 • MayorChatchai Timkrachang
Area
 • Town municipality4.058 km2 (1.567 sq mi)
 • Urban
616.4 km2 (238.0 sq mi)
Population
 (2018)[1]
 • Town municipality24,127
 • Density5,900/km2 (15,000/sq mi)
 • Urban
327,172
 Registered residents only
Time zoneUTC+7 (ICT)

Si Racha[2] (Thai: ศรีราชา, pronounced [sǐː rāːt͡ɕʰāː]) is a subdistrict and town in Thailand on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand, about 120 km southeast of Bangkok in Si Racha district, Chonburi province. The town is the center of the Si Racha district, the ninth-largest urban city area in Thailand. Si Racha is in the industrial Eastern Seaboard zone, along with Pattaya, Laem Chabang, and Chonburi. It is also part of the Pattaya-Chonburi Metropolitan Area, a conurbation with a population of 999,092 people.

Si Racha is known as the provenance of the popular hot sauce, Sriracha, which is named after the town.[3]

History

Si Racha used to be part of Bang Lamung district which it borders today to its south. In 1900 (B.E 2443) Field Marshal Chao Phraya Surasak Montri came to the area of the modern town and built a sawmill under his company Sriracha Capital Company Limited. In 1903, Surasak Montri requested that the district capital of Bang Phra district be moved to Si Racha, which it did but retained its original name before becoming Si Racha district in 1917.[4]

The municipality was created as a subdistrict municipality (thesaban tambon) in 1945.[5] In 1995, the subdistrict municipality was upgraded to a town municipality (thesaban mueang).[6]

On 3 September 2023, an oil pipeline that was in use filling an oil tanker off a jetty owned by Thai Oil ruptured, causing an oil spill. The spill polluted the Gulf of Thailand with 50-70 m³, producing a 5 km slick. The spill is currently under the authority of the Pollution Control Department and the Marine Department. Thai Oil was later given permission to use 6,000 litres of dispersant on the slick.[7] As of 7 September 2023, the coral off the coast of islands in the gulf have been unaffected by the spill.[8]

Unrelated to the oil spill, on 8 September the waters off Si Racha experienced a plankton bloom caused by recent monsoons that had occurred across the country, causing the beaches up to Bang Saen Beach to be covered by dead marine life, including ponyfishes, crabs, pufferfishes, and tilapias.[9][10]

Education

The Thai-Japanese Association School Sriracha, a Japanese international school, is in Si Racha. It is an affiliate of the Thai-Japanese Association School in Bangkok.[11] Si Racha formerly housed the Sriracha-Pattaya Japanese Supplement School, a Japanese weekend school.[12]

View of Si Racha, with Central Si Racha shopping mall in the foreground

References

  1. ↑ "Population statistics 2018". Department of Provincial Administration.
  2. ↑ Note: An alternative spelling is Sri Racha. Si Racha is the official transcription of the Thai pronunciation attributable to the fact that the consonant cluster /sr/ doesn't occur natively in Thai speech Archived 2011-10-06 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ↑ "The Original Sriracha". Bon Appétit. Condé Nast Publications. 2013-03-04. Retrieved 2014-11-11.
  4. ↑ "ประวัติของศรีราชา (รวบรวมและเรียบเรียงจากหนังสือ 100 ปี ศรีราชา)". konruksriracha.in.th (in Thai). Retrieved 2023-06-13.
  5. ↑ พระราชกฤษฎีกาจัดตั้งเทศบาลตำบลศรีราชา จังหวัดชลบุรี พุทธศักราช ๒๔๘๘ (PDF). Royal Gazette (in Thai). 62 (36 ก): 412–415. 1945-07-03. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 28, 2012.
  6. ↑ พระราชกฤษฎีกาจัดตั้งเทศบาลเมืองศรีราชา จังหวัดชลบุรี พ.ศ. ๒๕๓๘ (PDF). Royal Gazette (in Thai). 112 (40 ก): 45–48. 1995-09-24. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 28, 2012.
  7. ↑ "Oil leak off Si Racha, clean-up started". Bangkok Post. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  8. ↑ "Oil spill may trigger 'coral abortions'". Bangkok Post. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  9. ↑ Top (2023-09-10). "Dead fish boom caused by sudden plankton bloom in Sri Racha". Thaiger. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  10. ↑ ViralPress (2023-09-07). "Stomach-churning green sea kills thousands of fish on Thai beach". Longview News-Journal. Retrieved 2023-09-10.
  11. ↑ "学校案内 シラチャ校アクセス ." Thai Japanese Association School. Retrieved on 9 January 2018. "312/10 Moo 5, Surasak, Sriracha, Chonburi 20110, THAILAND"
  12. ↑ "アジアの補習授業校一覧" (). MEXT. January 2, 2003. Retrieved on January 12, 2018. "シラチヤ・パタヤ SRIRAOHA [sic]・PATTAYA JAPANESE SUPPLEMENT SCHOOL 53 SRIRACHA NAKHON SOI I, SUKHUMNT ROAD CHONBURI"
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