ASEAN community is the significant changing of Thailand both national and international level. These changes have affected ways of life, economic system, socio-cultural community, and cooperation between the state actors and non-state actors like civil society organization and private sectors. The Department of Local Administration has seen the important of these issues can shape our local society, and then we have created the information center on ASEAN for Thai bureaucracy and other mechanisms to use the database making contributions.
Before ASEAN, the countries of Southeast Asia had tried to establish a number of regional organizations to promote regional integration. These included, among others, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in 1954, the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) in 1961 and MAPHILINDO, a grou