PURPOSE: To provide a thermal print head of a simple structure which realized high-speed printing by simplifying processing of printing data of a driving circuit and the transfer of data and also avoiding the complexity of the structure of the driving circuit.

CONSTITUTION: The thermal print head is provided with a latch to which parallel printing data is input, multiplexers 11, 13, 15, etc., as selecting/driving circuits for selecting/scanning/driving the latch to hold the printing data, a printing part having a plurality of heat generating resistor on an insulating substrate, and a switching element interposed between the latch an the heat generating resistor for controlling the voltage impressed to the heat generating resistor on the basis of the data held by the latch.