Cultural diversity in Thailand is generally represented by the Thai government in regional terms. Thailand is officially divided into central Thailand, northern Thailand, northeastern Thailand, and southern Thailand. Among the peoples of these four regions there is great linguistic and cultural diversity, but the official rhetoric has been that they are all "Thai"-where "Thai" is an ethnically and culturally loaded term. Indeed, from the turn of the century the Thai government has firmly discouraged use of the ethnic labels "Lao," "Khmer," "Malay," for Thailand's peoples in favor of the one category "Thai.