Fun Facts, Pt. 1

The other week Betty asked me what 2552 means, and I realized I have not been researching fun Thai facts the way I had originally intended. Please excuse my overuse of Wikipedia for information (yeah, yeah, yeah I know it needs a good fact checkin').

2552. Technically, Thailand runs on a Buddhist solar calendar known as Suriyakati (this might be one of those aforementioned facts from Wikipedia that could be incorrect, but I am hoping not!). It was adopted as the national calendar in 1888 by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V). The equivalent to our standard Gregorian calendar A.D. (Anno Domini, In the Year of the Lord) is known as the Buddhist Era, or B.E. The Thai calendar has a difference of 543 years from our standard calendar because the start date is believed to be the date of Buddha's death, March 11, 545 B.C. If you do the math, then you'll notice they rounded a bit to come up with that 543 year ditty. While Thai New Year is in April, in 1940 the Thai calendar switched to a standard January 1st start date. The table below shows how the B.E. years correlate with A.D.

The standard formula would be:

A.D. Year + 543 = B.E. (2009 + 543 = 2552)

To stay in line with the global market, Thais do use the Gregorian calendar year for business practices, like banking, but on passports and I.D.s you will find the B.E. year used.