Stickman Estimates The Number In Thailand

Outside of the most well-known spots - Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket, there are the "secondary areas" like Ko Samui, Hua Hin and Chiang Mai. Naughty bars with girls can be found in other touristy areas like Ko Samet and Ko Chang. And then you get into the places where relatively small numbers of Western holidaymakers venture, but where there are enough Western guys living locally to sustain a few naughty bars. This would include Songkhla, Udon Thani and Khon Kaen.

Nana Plaza has 32 bars, but only 28 of them have women available. Remember, Nana Plaza is katoey central and there are four bars where all you'll find are transsexuals. My best guess is that there is an average of perhaps 45 girls per bar in Nana. That is 1,260 girls. In the past the number would have been a fair bit higher. A lot of the bars seem to have fewer girls now than they did say 5 years ago. This is probably best explained by the fact that there are many more bars in Bangkok these days meaning more options in terms of places to work.

Soi Cowboy has a similar number of bars, but there would have to be fewer girls there than Nana. There are not so many big bars, and a couple of hole in the wall types. With the number of bars on Soi Cowboy totaling 30, I estimate an average of about 35 girls per bar, although that is perhaps a little on the high side when you factor in the likes of the tiny Pam's Bar. Assuming 35 girls per bar, that would make a total of about 1,050 girls. That's got to be in the ball park.

Patpong is perhaps the easiest bar area in Bangkok to estimate numbers. Most of the gogo bars are medium in size and have a similar number of girls employed. You do not have a lot of really big bars but there are a few of the smaller bars on the second Patpong Soi, which have only a small number of girls. There are about 50 bars spread over the two Patpong sois and the average number of available girls would again be around 35 in each bar, meaning a total of perhaps 1,750 girls, making it the most populous of Bangkok's major bar areas.

So Stickman estimates the number is as follows:
Nana Plaza 1,260
Soi Cowboy 900
Patpong 1,750
Sukhumvit Soi33 675
Bangkok beer bars combined 1,200
Bangkok freelancers 1,500
Phuket 2,500
Pattaya 17,000
Ko Samui 500
Hua Hin 300
Others (Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Udon + everywhere else) 1,500
TOTAL 29,265

(Estimates 7,285 in Bangkok alone)