การกำหนดแนวแบ่งเขตภูมิภาคระหว่างภาคกลาง และภาคเหนือ / สุนีย์ แจ้งแจ่มจิตต์ = Determination of the regional division line between the central and the northern regions / Sunee Jangjamjitt
The objective of this research is to determine the appropriate classification for those eight provinces designated as the lower Northern Region by the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESEB) but classified by the National Geography Board as belonging to the Central Region. The study has two steps. First, discriminant analysis is used to determine the differential characteristics between the Northern and the Central Region and also to create physical and socio-economic models. Second, these two models are used as a test to determine whether the eight provinces should be classified as part of the Northern or Central Region. This research has determined the principal differential physical characteristics between the Central and the Northern Region which constituted: mean annual temperature, percentage of rice cultivation area and percentage of irrigated land. For all the three variables, the Central Region shows higher figures revealing its warmer and relatively flat terrain. Socio-economically, the two regions differ in that the Central Region has a higher population growth rate than the North, and in the North, a greater percentage of the region’s population is engaged in agriculture. In applying the physical model to the eight provinces being considered in this research, it was found that all except Uttaradit belong to the Central Region, as determined by the National Geography Board. However, in applying the socio-economic regional model, all are in the Northern Region except Kamphaeng Phet, Nakhon Sawan and Uthai Thani, which are in the Central Region. It is remarkable that the discriminant scores of the eight provinces differ from those of the provinces of both the Northern and the Central Regions. In summary; the eight provinces comprise a region that does not have the same physical and socio-economic characteristics as either the Northern or the Central Region. In the view of the NESDB and the National Geography Board, this region may rightly be called “the lower part of the Northern Region” or “the upper part of the Central Region.”
