Indians in Thailand
| Total population | |
|---|---|
|
Indian nationals 65,000 People of Indian descent (465,000) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Bangkok · Chiangmai · Phuket | |
| Languages | |
| Thai · Tamil · English · Punjabi · Hindi | |
| Religion | |
|
Hinduism · Buddhism · Sikhism · Islam historically Zoroastrianism |
|
| Related ethnic groups | |
| People of Indian Origin |
About 65,000 Indian Thais have full Thai citizenship, but around 400,000 persons of Indian origin settled in Thailand mainly in the cities.
A Tamil community has been around since the 1860s. Most of the Indians arrived in the last century, notably from Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu is an ancient country, a lot of Tamil people came during the Chola period. Some others came from Punjab, Rajasthan and some from Gujarat. Buddhism and Hinduism originally arrived in Thailand from India and spread over the years.
The historical number of the Indian population in Thailand can be seen in British consular statistics; however, these figures often lumped Indians together with Sinhalese and Malays. According to 1912 statistics, there were 30 Indians registered in the Chiengmai (Chiang Mai) consular district, 41 Indians and Malays in the Puket (Phuket) consular district, 40 Indians and Malays in the Senggora (Songkhla) consular district, and 423 Indians, Sinhalese, and Malays in the Bangkok consular district. These figures were also believed to be a gross undercount of the true population; for example, the Bangkok consular district had registered only 517 British subjects, but other estimates claimed the number was 20 times higher.
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