Soi
Encyclopedia
Soi is the term used in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 for a side-street branching off a major street (Thanon). An alley is called a Trok .

Sois are usually numbered, and are referred to by the name of the major street and the number, as in "Soi Sukhumvit 4", "Sukhumvit Soi 4", or "Sukhumvit 4", all referring to the fourth soi of Sukhumvit Road
Sukhumvit Road
Sukhumvit Road , or Thailand Route 3 , is a major road in Thailand, and a major surface road of Bangkok and other cities it winds through. It follows a coastal route from Bangkok to Trat and is just over in length....

 in Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...

. When walking on the major street towards increasing soi numbers, all the even-numbered sois are on the right side and the odd-numbered ones on the left side of the street. If for instance a new soi is added between soi 7 and soi 9 it will get the number soi 7/1, the next one soi 7/2 etc. It is also possible that soi 20 is far away from soi 21 if there are more sois on one side of the street than on the other.

Almost all sois in Bangkok also have a name. On lower Sukhumvit road in Bangkok for instance the sois are named after important landowners or families of landowners who had land in the area in the past.

Some sois become major thoroughfares and because of that get known by their name only. Examples are Asok (Soi Sukhumvit 21), Thong Lo (Soi Sukhumvit 55), Ekkamai (Soi Sukhumvit 63), Pridi Banomyong (Soi Sukhumvit 71) etc.

The houses in a soi are numbered. If a new house is inserted after the house with number 150 for instance, it will get the number 150/1 etc. A formal address might read "150/1 Soi Sukhumvit 7", referring to the house with the first number after 150 in the seventh soi of Sukhumvit road. The house numbers in most sois don't start at 1, but continue the house numbers of the main street.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK