Sai Buri district

Neighboring districts are (from the southeast clockwise): Mai Kaen of Pattani Province; Bacho of Narathiwat province; Kapho, Thung Yang Daeng, and Panare of Pattani. To the east is the Gulf of Thailand.

Sai Buri was one of the seven mueangs into which the Pattani sultanate was split. In the thesaphiban administrative reforms at the beginning of the 20th century it became a province within the Monthon Pattani. In 1909 the area of the province was reduced by reassigning Yi-Ngo and modern-day Mueang Narathiwat Districts to Mueang Bang Nara, now Narathiwat Province. In 1932 the province was abolished, the northern half was added to Pattani Province and the southern part to Narathiwat.^[2]

Originally simply named "Mueang", the district was renamed "Taluban" in 1917.^[3] In 1938 the district was renamed "Sai Buri".^[4]

Sai Buri's Chinatown or Sai Buri's old town zone known locally as Cino Kampong. It is a Kelantan-Pattani Malay dialect, the word Cino means Chinese and Kampong means rural area. So it means "Chinatown in suburb area". The area has been a community for 200–300 years. Sai Buri used to be an important commercial port in this part of the country. It so has suitable beach to anchor the ships during monsoon. The Chinese merchants came for trading. The first Chinese race who settled here was Hokkien.

The highlight of Cino Kampong is the historic buildings, most of which are two-story half-timbered half-concrete shophouses built in the Sino-Malay architecture style, called "Cino Kampong", the only ones in the country and one-third of the world.^[5]

The district is divided into 11 sub-districts (tambons), which are further subdivided into 64 villages (mubans). Taluban is a sub-district municipality (thesaban tambon), which encompasses tambon Taluban. Each of the other sub-districts has a tambon administrative organization (TAO).