Thailand · Changwat Rayong
Where to Stay in Rayong, Changwat Rayong
Rayong is a fishing and industrial city on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand, capital of Rayong province and the country's fish-sauce centre.
Find your area →
Where to stay in Rayong
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Rayong divides between the city and the sand. Tha Pradu and Pak Nam are the two tambons the municipality covers outright, and a room in either puts the everyday city, its markets and its offices and its fishing trade, within reach on foot or by a very short drive. Pak Nam smells of the catch.
That is the working side, where the fish that supplies the fish sauce of Thailand comes ashore, and it suits anyone who wants a real port town rather than a resort. Rayong Province is far bigger than the municipality, so the difference between a night in the city and a night out on its coast is a real one. The beaches are a separate decision.
Modest and scattered around Rayong Province rather than gathered onto one strip, they are quiet, and reaching them means a drive out of Mueang Rayong district along the Eastern Gulf Coast. Industry shares this shore. An oil refinery and the plants of the chemical and vehicle industries hold stretches of the same coastline, so the shore is not uniformly quiet and choosing a beach means choosing which part of it to sit on.
Choeng Noen and Noen Phra fall part-way between the two.
About Rayong
Fishing built Rayong and still runs it.
What is Rayong known for?
Pak Nam carries that trade, the city is the main producer of the fish sauce Thailand puts on its tables, and chemical and vehicle industry has since settled along the same shore. Ford Motor Company came in 2012. Its assembly plant was opened to widen the company's presence in the ASEAN area, on a working coast that also carries an oil refinery.
What are the main landmarks in Rayong?
Rayong keeps its sights along the water. Modest beaches lie dotted around Rayong Province, quiet enough for anyone who came for the sea rather than for a monument, while the working shore at Pak Nam supplies the other half of the picture. An oil refinery marks the industrial stretch.
The Ford Motor Company plant belongs to the same coast, and Tha Pradu holds the streets in between.
What is the history of Rayong?
Fish came first in Rayong. The main industry of the city has long been fishing, worked from the coast at Pak Nam, and the same trade made the place the chief producer of the fish sauce sold across Thailand. The record puts its founding at 1917.
Position on the Gulf of Thailand explains most of what followed, since a town with the sea at its edge could take up trades that inland places had no way to handle, and the catch has been its constant ever since. Industry arrived on the same coast. Chemical works and vehicle manufacturing made Rayong their centre, and in 2012 Ford Motor Company opened an assembly plant here to widen the company's presence in the ASEAN area.
An oil refinery stands along the shore. The municipality covers Tha Pradu and Pak Nam outright and takes in parts of Choeng Noen and Noen Phra as well, all of it inside Mueang Rayong district and answering for Changwat Rayong as the provincial capital. Modest beaches took the rest of Rayong Province, so the working coast and the quiet shore now lie within a short drive of one another.
Where is Rayong?
Rayong faces the Gulf of Thailand. The city stands on the east coast of that gulf, along the Eastern Gulf Coast, and its municipal area gathers the tambons of Tha Pradu and Pak Nam together with parts of Choeng Noen and Noen Phra, all inside Mueang Rayong district. Modest beaches lie scattered around Rayong Province.
Nowhere in Rayong sits far from salt water.
What is the climate of Rayong?
The Gulf of Thailand sets the terms. Rayong lies in the tropics on an open coast, and the water off the Eastern Gulf Coast keeps the air humid the year round while pushing a breeze onto the beaches that the inland tambons feel far less of. Rain has its months.
Shade in Tha Pradu is easy enough to find once the sun is high.
How do you get to Rayong?
Rayong is a coast-road city. Traffic runs along the Eastern Gulf Coast to reach it, and inside the municipality the tambons of Tha Pradu, Pak Nam, Choeng Noen and Noen Phra sit close enough together that one short drive covers all four. Mueang Rayong district holds them.
Beaches around Rayong Province take longer, being scattered rather than gathered onto a single strip.
Good for
Updated August 2026