Chiang Mai – A little insight
Chiang Mai City
Located around 880 km North of Bangkok, surrounded by some of the highest peaks in Thailand, Chiang Mai is the largest City in Northern Thailand.
Capital of Chiang Mai Province, the City of Chiang Mai is steeped in the ancient Buddhist and Lanna culture.
Sitting on the banks of the Ping River Chiang Mai has become more and more modernized in recent years , but still retains a ‘large Town’ feel rather than being a bustling metropolis like Bangkok.
Chiang Mai is a great centre for handmade local art and craft ; paintings, silver and gold ware, exquisite wood carvings, hand painted umbrellas and much more besides.
With a rough population of 160,000 people within the inner city district, the wider Chiang Mai over spill into neighboring local districts, raises the local population to nearly 710,000 , which makes up almost half of the total for the whole of Chiang Mai Province.
A bit of history
Chiang Mai means “New City and was established by King Mengrai in 1296.
Chiang Mai then replaced Chiang Rai as the capital city of the Lanna Kingdom.
The Moat was built around the original City to protect it against the Burmese.
As the Lanna kingdom faded , so did Chiang Mais significance and for many years it was often occupied by Thais from Ayutthaya or the Burmese.
When Ayutthaya fell to the Burmese in 1767, Chiang Mai was eventually abandoned for a period of fifteen years, between 1776 and 1791. During this period Lampang replaced Chiang Mai as the Lanna Capital.
In 1774, Thai King Taksin captured the city from the Burmese, and Chiang Mai then became part of Siam.
Chiang Mais cultural, trading and economic importance grew over the centuries to eventually become the unofficial capital of the north of Thailand, second only to Bangkok.
Kham Muang (also known as Northern Thai or Lanna) , is still strongly used amongst the local people, although Bangkok Thai is more widely used for educational purposes. You also come across various other forms of the language used by the surviving Hilltribes
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