Changwat Lamphun, Thailand — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Changwat Lamphun known for?

This is the north's oldest story. Long before Chiang Mai existed, the Mon queen Chamadevi ruled here over Hariphunchai, and the gilded chedi of Wat Phra That Hariphunchai still rises at the heart of the old walled town. Orchards of longan spread across the valley floor around Lamphun, the lamyai that made the province famous.

Pilgrims come for the relic. Most come only for the day, riding down from Chiang Mai on a quiet run south along the Ping valley to a town that keeps the pace of an older north.

Where is Changwat Lamphun?

Lamphun is the smallest province of the north. It fills a narrow slice of the Ping River valley, hemmed between two mountain walls that run north to south for the length of the province. The Thanon Thong Chai Range rises along the western edge, and the Khun Tan Range walls off the east.

Forest still covers the ridges. More than half the province stays under trees, most of it up on those two ranges rather than down on the farmed floor. Doi Khun Tan National Park straddles the eastern wall, shared with Lampang over the crest.

Borders here follow the mountains and the water. Chiang Mai wraps around the province to the north and west, Lampang lies east beyond the Khun Tan ridge, and Tak stretches away to the south. The valley holds the people.

Down its floor the Ping River runs south out of Chiang Mai, gathering the Kuang River that loops past the walls of Lamphun town before carrying on toward Tak and the central plain. Longan orchards cover the flat land between the ranges, and the sweetest of them ripen around Ban Nong Chang Khuen near Lamphun town in the north. The mountains keep it small.

What is Changwat Lamphun like?

The Mon came first here. Long before the Thai kingdoms of the north, Lamphun was Hariphunchai, a Mon city that kept its own Buddhism, its own art, and its own script through the centuries. That inheritance stands in stone.

Wat Phra That Hariphunchai holds a golden chedi over the walled centre, its bell-shaped Lanna spire clad in gilded copper and raised around a relic of the Buddha. Across town stands an older shape. Wat Chamma Thewi, the temple named for Queen Chamadevi who founded the kingdom, keeps the tiered brick pyramid of Suwan Chang Kot, a stepped Mon chedi raised over her ashes.

The old speech survives too. People here speak Northern Thai, the Kham Mueang of the north, alongside the standard Thai of the schools and the capital. Craft and harvest fill the calendar.

When the longan ripen in August the town throws its lamyai festival, with floats built from the fruit and a parade through the old gates. In Pa Sang, looms still turn out the cotton the district has woven for generations. The result is a quieter, older north than the one the crowds find in Chiang Mai.

What is the history of Changwat Lamphun?

Lamphun keeps the oldest history in the north. The city began as Hariphunchai, the northernmost of the Mon kingdoms of the Dvaravati world, ruled from the start by Queen Chamadevi, sent north from Lavo to take its throne. For centuries it held the north.

In 1281 King Mangrai of Lan Na took the city and folded Hariphunchai into his new kingdom, ending the Mon line. Burmese armies later ruled the whole north for two centuries, and only under the reforms of Bangkok did Lamphun settle into its place as a province of Siam.

What is the climate of Changwat Lamphun?

Lamphun runs on three seasons. A cool, dry spell settles over the Ping valley from November into February, the clear stretch when the nights turn crisp and most travellers come. Then the heat builds.

March through May turns hot and hazy, when farmers burn the fields and smoke settles in the basin under the Khun Tan Range. The southwest monsoon breaks in May and greens the valley through to October, swelling the Kuang and ripening the longan for the August harvest.

How do you get to Changwat Lamphun?

Lamphun has no airport of its own. Most travellers fly into Chiang Mai instead, then cover the short run south to Lamphun by road or rail in about half an hour. The northern railway does the harder work.

The line climbs up from Bangkok and bores through the Khun Tan Range on the Lampang border in the longest railway tunnel in the country before dropping into the Lamphun valley. Buses and songthaews cover the rest, linking the town to Chiang Mai and the villages down the valley.