Our Amnat Charoen Province is cradled in the Mekong River valley. It became a province on its own on January 12, 1993. It is also one of the youngest provinces of Thailand.
The Amnat Charoen Province's official tree is Hopea ferrea. The entire and very long official slogan of our province spells like this: Phra Mongkhon, Seven River basils, Sacred caves, Phra Lao, Beautiful islands and mountains, precious silk and religious people.
Our Amnat Charoen Province is subdivided into 7 districts (amphoe). Such districts are further subdivided into 56 communes (tambon) and 653 villages (ban).
In our province of Amnat Charoen, people take a great delight in blending their lifestyle with ancestral and folkloric traditions. We celebrate many important festivals each year such as the Rocket Festival, Loy Krathong and Songkran (Read more on Songkran on our blog). Moreover, the people of our province are inclined to practice 14 moral regulations, such as cleaning their feet before entering a house, donating food to the monks, avoiding to walk across the shadow of any monk, paying respect to their parents, honoring the Buddha images with candles, joss (incense) sticks and flowers and also learning to live with the philosophy of Dhamma in their daily life.
Our Amnat Charoen Province is one of the 19 provinces of a greater region of Thailand called Isan (อีสาน) (also written as: Isaan, Isarn, Issan, Esan or Esarn), where the culture is predominantly Lao, and as such has much in common with its neighboring country of Laos. This affinity is shown in the region's cuisine, Lao-Isan language, traditional costumes, temple architecture, handicrafts, festivals, folkloric music and arts. The people of the region are known to take great delight in eating a wide variety of creatures, such as lizards, frogs, snakes and fried insects such as giant red ants, grasshoppers, scorpions, crickets, silkworms and dung beetles. Isan is also the main center for the production of Thai fine silk.
