About 12 km from Si Racha, 45 minutes, hourly from 07.00. Its own district since 1994, one tambon, seven villages, about 18 sq km. The hospital is a 30-bed level F2 community hospital — unusually good for an island — but moving a patient off means a chartered boat. Electricity arrived by submarine cable, distributing from April 2568; piped water is still being built and full waterworks takeover is officially projected for June 2571. And the island sits inside ten designated anchorage areas — which the hospital says obstruct its own evacuation route.
An island that is its own district
Koh Sichang is Amphoe Koh Sichang, Chonburi — one of the very few Thai islands that constitutes a district in its own right. It was raised to full district status on 3 July 2537 (1994), under a royal decree that created six districts at once. It holds a single tambon, Tha Thewawong, with seven villages, and the district’s own boundaries are entirely maritime: sea toward Samut Prakan to the north, Bang Lamung to the south, Si Racha to the east and Ban Laem in Phetchaburi to the west.
The scale, from Koh Sichang Hospital’s own operations manual: about 18 sq km, or 11,250 rai, about 12 km off the mainland. That manual is also the most careful population count we could reach, and it is worth reading closely. It gives a surveyed population of 4,956, of whom 3,594 are actually resident (1,701 men, 1,893 women), across 1,301 households. The remaining 980 or so are a floating population, and the manual says where they are: mostly living aboard cargo ships. Roughly a fifth of the people counted on this island are not on the island at all — they are at anchor off it.
A conflict we are not smoothing over. The Ministry of Interior, through the Government Public Relations Department, puts the island at 2,200 households. The hospital’s survey says 1,301. That is a 69 per cent difference between two government sources and we cannot reconcile it. If you need a household figure, name which ministry it came from.
Getting there, and the last boat nobody agrees on
The crossing is short enough that Koh Sichang functions in a way almost no other Thai island does: as a day trip from Bangkok, and as somewhere a person could plausibly live and still reach the Eastern Seaboard’s industry. But the operating detail is published inconsistently by the very authorities responsible for it.
| Detail | What the official sources say |
|---|---|
| Mainland pier | Koh Loi pier, Si Racha (Chonburi province and the municipality both name it) |
| Island pier | Thewawong pier |
| Distance | About 12 km (Koh Sichang Hospital's own operations manual) |
| Crossing time | About 45 minutes (province and municipality agree) |
| Frequency | Hourly |
| First boat | 07.00 (all official pages agree) |
| Last boat | 19.00 per the municipality; 20.00 per an older provincial page - unresolved |
| Fare | 40 baht per person per the municipality; 20 baht on an older provincial page - unresolved |
The 40 baht figure is the more recent of the two and comes from the municipality that runs the island; the 20 baht page is an older provincial listing that also names a different mainland pier, and a 20-baht fare is not credible in 2026. We are still printing both, because neither page carries a date and we would rather you knew the sources disagree than have us pick.
What we could not find is any ferry operator’s own website, any published return timetable from the island, any statement of whether a vehicle ferry exists, or any official confirmation that the service runs year-round. What we did find is the municipality issuing rough-sea travel-preparedness advisories, including one dated 5 June 2569 — which tells you the crossing is weather-sensitive without telling you how often it stops.
Ten anchorage zones, and why they are a health issue
Look out from Koh Sichang and the horizon is full of ships. That is not incidental scenery. The Marine Department’s own berth-status system carries Koh Sichang Anchorage as a named port zone in its own right, listed alongside Bangkok and Laem Chabang, and operates ten separately designated anchorage areas within it.
| Code | Designated area |
|---|---|
| THKSI/KOHAA | Koh Sichang Area A |
| THKSI/KOHAB | Koh Sichang Area B |
| KOHAC | Koh Sichang Area C |
| KOHAD | Koh Sichang Area D |
| THKSI/KOHAE | Koh Sichang Area E - the north Ao Udom anchorage |
| KOHAF | Koh Sichang Area F |
| THKSI/KOHAG | Koh Sichang Area G |
| THKSI/KOHAH | Koh Sichang Area H |
| KOHAW | Koh Sichang West |
| KOHBG | Koh Sichang Bargh |
The legal basis is Ministerial Regulation No. 37 of B.E. 2521, made under the Navigation in Thai Waters Act B.E. 2456, which defines the Koh Sichang port zone, the Ang Sila port zone and the anchorage zones. We could not retrieve the regulation’s own text, so we cannot give you the depths or the geographic bounds of Areas A to H.
What matters for anyone thinking about living here is the consequence, and it comes from the hospital’s own manual rather than from us: the island’s medical evacuation route is obstructed both by monsoon weather and by the cargo ships, barges and fishing boats in the way. The characteristic injuries among the ship-borne population, the same document says, are falls overboard and drowning. The anchorage is not a view. It is a factor in whether you can get to hospital.
A thirty-bed hospital, and a chartered boat
By island standards Koh Sichang is well served. Koh Sichang Hospital is a community hospital at service level F2 with 30 beds, HA level 3 accredited, with two resident doctors in internal medicine and 64 staff. It began as a health station in 2499, was upgraded in 2530 and got its hospital building in 2540. Emergency cover is 24 hours. In 2564 it saw 4,980 outpatients across 35,676 visits, about 98 a day, at 11.53 per cent bed occupancy.
Set that against the islands with a seven-bed clinic and the difference is real. But thirty beds is still thirty beds, and the referral point is Queen Savang Vadhana Memorial Hospital in Si Racha, a 500-bed Thai Red Cross hospital. Getting between them is the part worth knowing about, and the hospital publishes it itself in its award notices:
- Chartered passenger boat to transport patients — 13,500 baht, 4 September 2569.
- Chartered passenger boat to transport patients — 3,000 baht, 3 September 2569.
- Chartered passenger boat to transport patients — 5,700 baht, 19 November 2567.
Two charters in the first four days of one month. There is no dedicated ambulance boat and no scheduled medical service — the hospital hires a passenger boat each time and posts the award. A helicopter pad upgrade was 66 per cent complete as at 27 March 2569 by the Government Public Relations Department’s own account; we could not confirm whether it is finished or whether air ambulance actually serves the island. If you are weighing a move, read our health insurance guide alongside this.
Water is the real constraint, and it is being fixed slowly
Electricity is settled. The Provincial Electricity Authority’s submarine cable from Si Racha is complete and, per the Government Public Relations Department, distribution began in April 2568. A diesel plant on the island remains in service, and PEA has announced a solar and microgrid project approved by cabinet on 1 July 2568: 255 million baht over about 20 rai, roughly 6 MWp of photovoltaics with 2 MW / 2.5 MWh of battery storage, expressly including an upgrade of that diesel plant, aimed at reducing diesel dependence and providing backup during outages.
Water is not settled. The hospital’s manual gives the physical reason bluntly: the island is rock and has no natural storage, so the municipality has had to desalinate seawater, and most households keep private rainwater cisterns for the dry season. The Permanent Secretary for the Interior stated on the record that, sitting outside the Provincial Waterworks Authority’s service area, residents were paying up to 250 baht a unit — many times a mainland tariff.
A Royal-initiative programme has been closing that gap. As at September 2567 it had extended supply from Koh Loi in Si Racha to the pier, with a private water barge delivering 2,000 tonnes a trip, about five days’ supply, plus a pump station, chlorination house, tanks and main — reaching 400 of the island’s 2,200 households, with the other 1,800 to follow on small-diameter pipe. By March 2569 phase two was under way with meters, more pipe, greater reservoir capacity, a diversion weir and a reverse-osmosis system. The Provincial Waterworks Authority plans a desalination plant in 2570 and its takeover of the island’s waterworks is projected to complete in June 2571.
That is the honest headline for anyone thinking about a long stay: Koh Sichang did not have normal piped municipal water, it is mid-way through getting it, and the official completion date is 2028. Wastewater is a similar picture — there is no centralised treatment, and the municipality has requested just over 176 million baht in the 2570 budget for an underground plant, as a two-year commitment. Waste runs at about 15 tonnes a day.
The palace, and the university that looks after it
Phra Chudadhuj Rajathan is the reason most Thai visitors come, and it is genuinely singular: built from 2432 (1889) by King Chulalongkorn as a seasonal royal residence, and abandoned unfinished in 2435 (1892) because of the R.S. 112 crisis. The Government Public Relations Department describes it as the only royal palace on an island in Thailand.
In 2521 (1978) Chulalongkorn University was granted the right to use the site, to establish a research station and to care for the monument; from 2545 (2002) it was developed into a museum, with restoration carried out alongside the Fine Arts Department from 2004. Admission is free and hours are 09.00 to 17.00 — both Chulalongkorn sources agree on that much.
Opening days: two Chulalongkorn pages disagree. The university’s central services page says Wednesday to Sunday, closed Monday and Tuesday. The Office of Art and Culture — the unit that actually operates the museum — says Tuesday to Sunday including public holidays, closed Mondays only. We have not resolved it. Phone 038-216412 before you plan a Tuesday around it.
The same 1978 grant put a working Marine Science Research Station and Student Training Centre on the island, under Chulalongkorn’s Aquatic Resources Research Institute, on about 22 rai of Treasury Department state land in Tambon Tha Thewawong, with the research vessel Chula Vijai 1 and a programme in coastal oceanography, upper Gulf water quality and coral reef conservation. It is a rare thing on a small Thai island: a permanent scientific institution.
Land: five state agencies before you get to a private plot
The Community Organizations Development Institute, a Thai public organisation under the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, states the position in one line: most of the island’s area is state land — Royal Forest Department, Marine Department, and a non-hunting area. That is precisely why the local housing cooperative could not buy and instead leases from the Royal Forest Department at 20 baht a month on a 30-year term (CODI), a concessional rate for a low-income housing scheme; phase one built 42 units for about 200 residents around 2565. That is CODI’s own published account of the project it funded; the lease instrument itself is not a public document and we have not seen it.
Private freehold does exist — the same source records the cooperative buying private land separately in phase two, each household contributing 13,300 baht. But it is the exception. Add Treasury Department land under the university’s research station, the Privy Purse Bureau’s control of at least parcel 6, and the Department of National Parks’ protected-area office as an active land authority on the island, and you have five agencies to reckon with.
The practical rule: on Koh Sichang, assume state land until a title says otherwise, and have the plot checked against which agency’s land it abuts. We could not obtain any Chonburi Land Office material, and we found no evidence of Royal Thai Navy landholding on the island — which is an absence of evidence, not evidence of absence. For the general framework, see leasehold versus freehold and foreign condominium ownership. BAANLYY is a listing portal and gives no legal advice.
Schools, seasons and what we could not confirm
The whole district has three educational establishments: one secondary school with 179 pupils, one primary school with 248, and one child development centre with 210. There is no international school and no tertiary institution beyond the university’s research station.
On weather, the Thai Meteorological Department’s national calendar applies: the southwest monsoon from about mid-May to mid-October, the northeast monsoon from about mid-October to mid-February. The hospital’s manual repeats the same three-season calendar for the island specifically. Being in the sheltered upper Gulf, Koh Sichang is not exposed the way the Andaman islands are — but the municipality still issues rough-sea advisories, and the hospital still names storms as an obstacle to moving patients.
- The ferry operator’s identity, the return timetable, and whether a vehicle ferry exists. No official source and no operator website. The last boat and the fare are contradicted between two government pages.
- Whether the crossing runs year-round, and any Marine Department or provincial order suspending it.
- Annual vessel calls or tonnage at the anchorage, its depths, and the bounds of Areas A to H — these are in Ministerial Regulation No. 37, which we could not retrieve.
- Anything about internet provision on the island.
- Which immigration office has jurisdiction, and whether any service point exists on the island. We are not going to guess this one.
- The current water tariff after the new system, and any electricity surcharge. The 250 baht a unit figure describes the position before the scheme.
- Whether the helipad upgrade is finished, and whether air ambulance serves the island.
Frequently asked questions
By passenger boat from Koh Loi pier in Si Racha, about 12 km, roughly 45 minutes, hourly, first boat at 07.00. Both Chonburi province and the Koh Sichang municipality publish that much and they agree. They do not agree on the rest. The municipality's own travel page says the boats run 07.00 to 19.00 at 40 baht a person; an older provincial page says 07.00 to 20.00 at 20 baht and names a different mainland pier. Neither page is dated. We are printing both rather than picking a winner, because the difference matters if you are relying on the last boat. The province also mentions a speedboat option without publishing times or fares. We could find no ferry operator's own website at all, and no official statement of whether the service runs through the year - what we did find is the municipality issuing rough-sea travel-preparedness advisories, one of them dated 5 June 2569.
Because Koh Sichang is one of Thailand's principal offshore anchorages, and this is documented by the regulator rather than inferred. The Marine Department's own Single Window berth-status system carries Koh Sichang Anchorage as a named port zone in its own right, alongside Bangkok and Laem Chabang, and within it operates ten separately designated anchorage areas under the code prefix THKSI - Areas A through H, plus Koh Sichang West and Koh Sichang Bargh. The legal basis is Ministerial Regulation No. 37 of B.E. 2521, issued under the Navigation in Thai Waters Act B.E. 2456, which defines the Koh Sichang port zone, the Ang Sila port zone and the anchorage zones. Ten designated anchorage areas around an island of 18 sq km is itself the scale statement.
Koh Sichang Hospital, and it is better than most Thai island hospitals - a community hospital at service level F2 with 30 beds, HA level 3 accreditation, two resident doctors in internal medicine and 64 staff, on its own published profile. It runs a 24-hour emergency service, with clinics on weekdays 08.00 to 16.00 and after-hours cover to 20.00. Its 2564 utilisation was 4,980 outpatients across 35,676 visits, about 98 a day, at 11.53 per cent bed occupancy. The referral point is Queen Savang Vadhana Memorial Hospital in Si Racha, a 500-bed Thai Red Cross hospital, and the relationship is institutional rather than merely geographic - its clinical medical education centre sends students to Koh Sichang.
By chartered passenger boat, arranged transaction by transaction. This is not an inference: Koh Sichang Hospital publishes its award notices, and they include contracts for chartered passenger-boat services to transport patients - 13,500 baht on 4 September 2569 and 3,000 baht on 3 September 2569, two in the first four days of that month alone, with an earlier award of 5,700 baht in November 2567. There is no scheduled medical boat service. The hospital's own operations manual states the difficulty plainly: patient transfer is obstructed both by monsoon storms and by cargo ships, barges and fishing boats blocking the navigation route. A helicopter landing pad upgrade was reported by the Government Public Relations Department as 66 per cent complete on 27 March 2569; whether it is finished now we could not confirm.
Electricity yes, water not yet. The Government Public Relations Department reported in March 2569 that the Provincial Electricity Authority's submarine cable from Si Racha was complete and that electricity distribution began in April 2568. A diesel plant on the island remains in service, and PEA announced a solar and microgrid project approved by cabinet on 1 July 2568 - 255 million baht over about 20 rai, roughly 6 MWp of photovoltaics with 2 MW and 2.5 MWh of battery storage, expressly including an upgrade of that diesel plant. Water is the harder story. The island is rock with no natural storage; the hospital's manual records that the municipality has had to desalinate seawater and that most households keep private rainwater cisterns. The Permanent Secretary for the Interior stated that residents were paying up to 250 baht a unit in the dry season. A Royal-initiative scheme has since brought a barge delivering 2,000 tonnes a trip, about five days' supply, reaching 400 of the island's 2,200 households as at September 2567, with the Provincial Waterworks Authority planning a desalination plant in 2570 and full takeover of the waterworks expected to complete in June 2571.
Start from the assumption that most of the island is state land and work outwards, because that is what the government says. The Community Organizations Development Institute, a Thai public organisation, states that most of the island's area is state land held by the Royal Forest Department, the Marine Department and a non-hunting area - which is why the local housing cooperative could not simply buy, and instead leases from the Royal Forest Department at 20 baht a month on a 30-year term. Some private freehold does exist: the same source records the cooperative buying private land separately in its second phase. Beyond those, Chulalongkorn University's marine research station sits on about 22 rai of Treasury Department state land, and the Privy Purse Bureau controls at least parcel 6. On an island with five different state agencies as landholders, a buyer needs the title checked against which agency's land it abuts. BAANLYY is a listing portal, not a law firm, and none of this is legal advice.
Related guides
- Chonburi — the province this island district sits in, and the Eastern Seaboard economy behind it.
- Pattaya — an hour down the same coast, and the nearest place with an international property market.
- Koh Samet — the other upper-Gulf island guide we hold, and a different answer on national park land.
- National parks in Thailand — fees, closures and the rules that carry a fine.
- Leasehold versus freehold — the framework for a place where most land is the state’s.
- Retiring in Thailand — the route that most often brings people to a small island.
- Island living in Thailand — how the islands differ on the things that decide a move.
Forty-five minutes from the mainland, and a world away from it
Koh Sichang is the rare Thai island you could commute from. If that is the trade you are weighing, look at what is listed on the coast it faces.
Sources & References
- Koh Sichang Hospital - the hospital's own operations manual for 2568, which gives the district's area at about 18 sq km or 11,250 rai, the distance from Si Racha at about 12 km, the surveyed population of 4,956 of whom 3,594 are actually resident and about 980 are a floating population living aboard cargo ships, 1,301 households, the district's three educational establishments and their pupil numbers, and the hospital's own statement that patient transfer is obstructed by monsoon storms and by cargo ships, barges and fishing boats blocking the navigation route
- Koh Sichang Hospital - the hospital's own profile: a community hospital at service level F2 with 30 beds, HA level 3, two resident doctors and 64 staff, founded as a health station in 2499, upgraded in 2530 and given its hospital building in 2540, at 59 Moo 1, Tambon Tha Thewawong; and its published award notices for chartered passenger-boat services to transport patients
- Government Public Relations Department - the Permanent Secretary for the Interior on Koh Sichang's water: the island sitting outside the Provincial Waterworks Authority's service area, residents paying up to 250 baht a unit in the dry season, the barge delivering 2,000 tonnes a trip for about five days' supply, and the Royal-initiative scheme reaching 400 of the island's 2,200 households
- Government Public Relations Department - the Royal Secretary's eleventh inspection visit of 27 March 2569: Phra Chudadhuj Rajathan built in 2432 and halted in 2435 after the R.S. 112 crisis, described as the only royal palace on an island in Thailand; Chulalongkorn University's grant of use in 2521 and the museum from 2545; the submarine cable completed with distribution beginning April 2568; the helicopter landing pad 66 per cent complete; the wastewater plant budget request of just over 176 million baht for 2570; waste of about 15 tonnes a day; and the Privy Purse Bureau's control of parcel 6
- Provincial Electricity Authority - PEA's own announcement of the Koh Sichang solar and microgrid project approved by cabinet on 1 July 2568: 255 million baht, about 20 rai, roughly 6 MWp of photovoltaics and 2 MW / 2.5 MWh of battery storage, including an upgrade of the island's diesel plant
- Marine Department, Single Window berth-status system - the department's own port-zone list, which carries Koh Sichang Anchorage as a named zone with ten designated anchorage areas under the UN/LOCODE prefix THKSI, including Areas A to H, Koh Sichang West and Koh Sichang Bargh
- Chulalongkorn University - the university's own page for the Phra Chudadhuj Palace Museum, which it administers: opening 09.00 to 17.00, free admission with no booking, and restoration carried out with the Fine Arts Department from 2004
- Chulalongkorn University, Office of Art and Culture - the operating unit's own pages, which state opening days as Tuesday to Sunday including public holidays, closed Mondays only. This does not agree with the university's central page and we have not resolved it
- Chulalongkorn University, Aquatic Resources Research Institute - the Marine Science Research Station and Student Training Centre on Koh Sichang, built on about 22 rai of Treasury Department state land in Tambon Tha Thewawong, with the research vessel Chula Vijai 1 and a focus on coastal oceanography, upper Gulf water quality and coral reef conservation
- Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI), a Thai public organisation - its account of the Baan Mankong housing project on Koh Sichang: that most of the island's area is state land held by the Royal Forest Department, the Marine Department and a non-hunting area; the cooperative's lease from the Royal Forest Department at 20 baht a month for 30 years; 42 units and about 200 residents in phase one; and the cooperative's separate purchase of private land in phase two
- Queen Savang Vadhana Memorial Hospital, Si Racha - the hospital's own statement that it is a 500-bed hospital of the Thai Red Cross Society providing comprehensive medical services
- Provincial Waterworks Authority, Region 1 - PWA's own record of its involvement in the Koh Sichang water scheme, June 2567
- Chonburi Province - the provincial government's own travel information for Koh Sichang, giving the ferry from Koh Loi pier as hourly with a crossing of about 45 minutes
- Koh Sichang Subdistrict Municipality - the municipality's own travel page, giving daily passenger boats from Koh Loi pier in Si Racha between 07.00 and 19.00, hourly, 45 minutes, at 40 baht a person; and the municipality's own rough-sea travel advisories
- Thai Meteorological Department - the monsoon calendar: the southwest monsoon over Thailand from about mid-May to mid-October, and the northeast monsoon from about mid-October to mid-February
Primary and official sources are cited above. Government rules, fees and procedures in Thailand change over time and vary by office; always confirm current requirements with the relevant authority before relying on them. BAANLYY never takes paid placement in editorial content.
