Thailand: Coins Issued and Used

The baht (Thai: บาท, sign: ฿; code: THB) is the currency of Thailand. It is subdivided into 100 satang (สตางค์). The issuance of currency is the responsibility of the Bank of Thailand.

According to SWIFT, as of October 2014, the Thai baht ranked as the tenth most frequently used world payment currency.

The Thai Baht, like the Pound, originated from a traditional unit of mass. Its currency value was originally expressed as that of silver of corresponding weight (now defined as 15 grams), and was in use probably as early as the Sukhothai period in the form of bullet coins known in Thai as phot duang (Thai: พดด้วง). These were pieces of solid silver cast to various weights corresponding to a traditional system of units related by simple fractions and multiples, one of which is the baht.

That system was in use up until 1897, when the decimal system devised by Jayanta Mongkol, in which one baht = 100 satang, was introduced by king Chulalongkorn. However, coins denominated in the old units were issued until 1910, and the amount of 25 satang is still commonly referred to as a salueng, as is the 25-satang coin.