The word “culture” means “way of life” or “social heritage”. It embraces all forms of human response to environments. Culture and civilization have different meanings in that culture includes all aspects of ways of life whether they may be primitive or modern ones while civilization means only “the stage of being brought out of barbarism or the advanced stage in social development.”
Culture may be divided into various aspects as follows:
Linguistic culture, Aesthetic culture, Customary and traditional culture or folk culture, Spiritual culture.
Linguistic culture refers to language, including reading and writing processes. The Thai language consists basically pf monosyllabic words, such as 
which mean respectively to stand, to walk, to sit and to lie down. In writing and in speaking, musical tones provide different meanings to the same written word; for example, the word (transliterated as) KLAI if pronounced (that is, with a falling tone) means “near”, if pronounced (that is with a common tone) means “far.” Similarly the word SUA can be pronounced with different musical tones indicating different meanings: XXXX means a tiger, XXX a mat and XXXX a coat. In writing, symbols above the written word guide the reading and indicate the meaning of the word. Unlike English and West European languages which use the Roman alphabet and Arabic numerals, the Thai language has its own unique alphabet and numerals.
Aesthetic culture refers to conceptions of harmony, beauty and perfection in what has been created or made by human beings. The “Fine Arts” include painting, sculpture, architecture, drama and music. The Thai paintings of ancient times discovered in a southern province of Thailand, Yala, dated back to between the 10th and 13th centuries. The first well preserved painting, however, has been that discovered at an Ayutthaya ancient monastery which was founded in 1424 A.D.
Thai sculpture has been mostly the art of forming images of the Buddha. It belongs to five periods: 
- The Chiang Saen Period,
- The Sukhothai Period,
- The Li-Thong Period,
- The Ayutthaya Period,
- The Rattanakosin or Bangkok Period 1782 A.D. to the present.
Sculpture in each period has its own distinctive characteristics.
Traditional Thai architecture has been chiefly devoted to building royal palaces, monastery buildings and pagodas.
Typical examples of this formal architecture are to be seen in Bangkok, but they also abound throughout the country.
Thai drama is of many kinds such as Khon or the masked play, Lakhon Nok
(performed by both men and women), and Lakhon Nai (performed by women
only). Thai classical dances are mostly part of dramatic entertainments.
Thai musical instruments are of four kinds : the instrument of flipping
or snapping (XX), drawing (XX), percussion (XX) and woodwind (XX).
Other forms of Thai art, of course, also prevail; of these, the inlaid work of mother-of- pearl used to decorate window and door panels of the shrine hall in the monastery and some utensils is exemplary.
Customary and traditional culture or folk culture of Thailand is mostly based on or concerned with human relations and Buddhism; for example,
when the sun enters the zodiac of Aries, generally on April 13 every year, the Thai people celebrate Songkran Festival by paying respect to their parents and old
relatives, pouring scented water into their hands and receiving in return words of blessing for their happiness and prosperity from their parents and old relatives. They also visit the nearest monastery to pay homage to Buddhist monks; they pour scented water onto the image of the Buddha as a kind of worship; they free birds and fish as a gift of freedom and life; and finally they dedicate these meritorious acts to departed ancestors.
Only then will various kinds of folk games and entertainment follow. Modesty, paying respect to parents, elders, teachers and Buddhist monks, and accepting and following the admonitions of parents and teachers provide the basis for Thai customs and tradition.
Spiritual culture cannot be adequately treated if one leaves Buddhism aside because Buddhism has played its important roles in the way of life of the Thai people from the Sukhothai period (700 years ago) to the present. Much of their spirit is captured in stone inscriptions of the Sukhothai period which may be quoted in essence as follows:
“Good are the Sukhothai people. They are of generous and moral habits, always observing precepts and giving alms. The people of this Sukhothai, old and young, male and female, all of them are pious, cherishing their faith in Buddhism, each observing precepts during the rainy-season. After Lent, the Kathin (the ceremony of saffron robe presentation) is observed for aperiod of one month.”
The importance of Buddhist thought is all the more apparent because, while Thailand observes religious freedom, an overwhelming proportion of the Thais are Buddhist. The percentage of those who adhere to various faiths is reported by the Office of National Statistics to be as follows:
- Buddhists 95.24%
- Muslims 4.02%
- Christians 0.60%
- others 0.14%
There are today more than 300,000 Buddhist monks and novices and more than 25,000 Buddhist monasteries throughout the country. There are, as well, two Buddhist Universities and some 7,000 schools for Buddhist education run by ecclesiastical authorities. These schools and universities are in addition to over 10,000 schools for boys and girls which are situated in the monasteries themselves. It is thus, not surprising that Buddhist thought and behaviour constitute a major strand, a bond that does much to provide coherence and direction to Thai culture. More about Buddhism, meditation and the influence it has on the Thai people