The Thai education system: principles, organisation and school calendar
Twelve years of free basic education, nine years of compulsory schooling, fifteen years of free education if pre-school is included: the figures that…
Understand 11 min read
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Europe in Bangkok: Neoclassical, Neo-Renaissance and Art Nouveau, from Rama IV to Rama VII
In little more than half a century, Bangkok acquired paved roads, tree-lined avenues, domed throne halls and palaces adorned with rococo or Art…
Understand 11 min read
Dusit, Rama V's ‘European-style’ royal quarter: how a palace garden shifted the centre of Bangkok
At the end of the 19th century, King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) had rice fields and orchards purchased north of Bangkok, between two canals. Within some…
Understand 13 min read
Rattanakosin: Bangkok and the Chakri Kings Face Their Neighbours, 1782–1932
In 1782, a general moved the Siamese capital from one bank of the Chao Phraya to the other and founded a dynasty that still reigns today. The name…
Understand 13 min read
Elephants and mahouts in Thailand: a shared history, from warfare to tourist camps
A man seated on an elephant's neck, guiding it with his voice and his knee: the scene seems timeless. Yet it sums up at least seven centuries of…
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At the Wellspring of Visual Storytelling: The Art of Sukhothai and Its Legacy
The history of Thai art tends to begin at Sukhothai, in the 13th century, in what UNESCO presents as the first kingdom of Siam. Here we find brick…
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Talat Noi, the junk quarter: how a Sino-Thai village took shape on the banks of the Chao Phraya
Between Yaowarat and the Phadung Krung Kasem Canal, on the east bank of the Chao Phraya, Talat Noi covers less than half a square kilometre. Yet this…
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Thonburi and King Taksin: raising Siam again in fifteen years (1767–1782)
In April 1767, Ayutthaya fell to the Burmese army. The Siamese kingdom was left with neither capital nor dynasty, and several leaders vied for what…
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Mount Meru in the City: How Siam's Temples and Royal Pyres Reproduce the Hindu-Buddhist Universe
At the centre of the Buddhist universe rises a mountain, Meru, encircled by seven ranges, seven seas and four continents. In the 14th century the…
In depth 13 min read
The Thai Sangha: the history and organisation of a monastic community
More than forty-four thousand registered temples, and several hundred thousand monks and novices depending on the period: the Thai Sangha is an…
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Pahurat, Bangkok's ‘Little India’: a royal road, Punjabi merchants and a quarter still finding itself
A few steps from Yaowarat, Bangkok's Chinatown, a handful of streets in the old city sell saris, gold braid and lengths of fabric. Above them rises…
Understand 12 min read
Ayutthaya: Four Centuries of a Cosmopolitan Capital (1350–1767)
For more than four centuries, from its foundation in the mid-fourteenth century to its destruction by Burmese armies in 1767, Ayutthaya was far more…
Understand 12 min read
Thailand's mangroves: a forest between land and sea, from collapse to recovery
Neither wholly terrestrial nor wholly marine, the mangrove fringes the estuaries and muddy shores of Thailand, from the upper reaches of the Gulf to…
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Rama III and the Chinese Taste: The Origins of the Sino-Thai Style in Bangkok
Under the reign of Rama III, commonly placed between 1824 and 1851, several of Bangkok's royal temples were clad in ceramics and filled with stone…
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'Thainess': the history of a national identity constructed, imposed and contested
In official speeches, at school and in public debate, *khwam pen thai*, 'Thainess', literally 'the fact of being Thai', is taken as self-evident. Yet…
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Lanna, Kingdom of the North: from Mangrai to Dara Rasmi, Chiang Mai between Ayutthaya, Burma and Bangkok
For nearly six centuries, the north of present-day Thailand answered to a capital other than Sukhothai, Ayutthaya or Bangkok. Founded in 1296 by…
Understand 13 min read
From Rain-Fed Rice to the World Market: How Rice Cultivation Shaped Thai Society
The flooded paddies that now make up the image of the Thai countryside are not a timeless backdrop. Archaeology shows that the first rice cultivated…
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Sukhothai, ‘the dawn of happiness’: kings, rivals and the birth of a Tai kingdom
In the 13th century, Tai chiefs broke away from Khmer authority and established at Sukhothai a power that rose to prominence, then, in little more…
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Rattanakosin Island, the historic heart of Bangkok: a capital shaped by water, contested by its memory
On 21 April 1782, on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya, a wooden pillar is planted in the ground. This act founds the capital of the new Chakri…
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The Mekong between Thailand and Laos: a border drawn on a shared river
For hundreds of kilometres, the Mekong separates Thailand from Laos. Yet this line of water is no immemorial natural barrier. It was born of a…
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Temples, roads and Angkorian power: the Khmer imprint on the lands of the future Siam
From the Khorat Plateau to the Chao Phraya valley, stone sanctuaries are a reminder that between the 11th and 13th centuries much of present-day…
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From the Ramayana to the Ramakien: how the Indian epic became Siamese
On the walls of Wat Phra Kaew, as on the stages of the *khon*, Phra Ram has been doing battle with Thotsakan for more than two centuries. Their story…
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Yaowarat, from Sampheng market to the ‘dragon road’: how Bangkok’s Chinatown took shape
Some one and a half kilometres long, Yaowarat Road has become the emblem of Bangkok’s Chinatown, with its shop signs, its gold shops and its…
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Dvaravati, the ‘First Mon Kingdom’ of the Central Plain: Rulers, Figures and Neighbours (6th–11th Century)
It left no certain capital, no king list and no chronicle of its own. Yet Dvaravati is the name engraved, in the 7th century, on silver medallions…
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Patpong, between spy legends, the Vietnam War and nightlife: what do we really know?
In 1946, a family of Hainanese origin bought an outlying plot of land between Silom and Surawong. Within a few decades, Patpong had become Bangkok's…
Understand 9 min read