Coup Atlas Research Database
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80005222014SuccessfulMilitary coup

Thailand, 2014 — military coup

Thailand (THA)Southeast Asia, AsiaMay 22, 2014

Event Summary

On May 22, 2014, Thailand's army chief, General Prayut Chan-o-cha, declared a military takeover after months of political crisis and street protests, days after a court had already removed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from office over an unrelated abuse-of-power case. Prayut suspended the constitution, banned political gatherings, and later became prime minister himself, remaining in power for years under a military-backed government before a return to elections.

Films & Footage

Soldiers at Chang Phueak Gate in Chiang Mai after the May 2014 coup.
Soldiers at Chang Phueak Gate in Chiang Mai after the May 2014 coup. Photo: Takeaway · CC BY-SA 3.0
General Prayut Chan-o-cha, who led the 2014 coup, photographed in 2018.
General Prayut Chan-o-cha, who led the 2014 coup, photographed in 2018. Photo: Dominique A. Pineiro / U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff · CC BY 2.0

Archival media is credited to its holding collection and license. Media sourcing policy →

Researched Details

Researched

Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.

Target identified in Coup Atlas research: Yingluck Shinawatra, Prime Minister of Thailand (removed by court order days before the coup)
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Yingluck Shinawatra (prime minister, already removed from office by court order days before the coup)
Prayut Chan-o-cha (army chief who declared martial law and led the takeover)

Sources

On May 22, 2014, Thai army chief General Prayut Chan-o-cha declared a military takeover after months of political crisis and street protests.
OWNER NOTE Coup Atlas project research (migrated from the record's original background); see Further reading for this event's citation trail.
The takeover came days after a court had already removed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from office over an unrelated abuse-of-power case.
OWNER NOTE Coup Atlas project research (migrated from the record's original background); see Further reading for this event's citation trail.
Prayut suspended the constitution, banned political gatherings, and later became prime minister himself, remaining in power for years under a military-backed government before a return to elections.
OWNER NOTE Coup Atlas project research (migrated from the record's original background); see Further reading for this event's citation trail.

Editorial Note

Migrated from this record's original background field so all research lives in one system. Source labels are HUMAN (project's own earlier research); the baseline citation trail for this event is listed under Further reading.

How It Unfolded

Hand-coded by Coup Atlas from the sources on this page, using a fixed list of tactics. Only events we have read through carry this coding, so most records do not have it yet.

Led by
Military
How long it took
2 days from first move to resolution
  • Declaration of martial law or curfew
  • Seizure of broadcasters / coup declaration on state media
  • Mass arrests of officials, officers, or opponents
  • Suspension of the constitution or dissolution of institutions

Cross-Reference

Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.

Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:

Cline Center id
80005222014
Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-800-2014-05-22

How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.

Outcome and Target

Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Yingluck Shinawatra, Prime Minister of Thailand (removed by court order days before the coup).

Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; arrested or jailed; tried; fled the country. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.

Baseline Dataset Citation
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
Open dataset DOI ↗
⚑ This citation establishes the coded baseline record; use the claim-level sources above for the researched narrative.

Baseline Source-Document Entries

Powell and Thyne

Named in the baseline source document; no article citation was recorded.

Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yingluck_Shinawatra

Wall Street Journal

“U.S. Cancels Exercises and Visits With Thailand in Response to Coup; Government Stops Short of Declaring Total Freeze in Military Relations With Thailand,” May 24, 2014
“Protests Against Thailand’s Coup Test Army’s Resolve; One of Biggest Questions Is How Protest Movement Will Emerge From Coup,” May 24, 2014

The Guardian

“Coup in Thailand to receive king’s approval: Protests grow as more activists are detained: Royal backing lets junta general tighten his grip,” May 26, 2014

This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →

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