Thailand · Changwat Udon Thani
Where to Stay in Udon Thani, Changwat Udon Thani
Udon Thani is a city of northeastern Thailand, a hub of the Isan plateau, a town near the ancient Bronze Age village of Ban Chiang and the pink Red Lotus Sea.
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Where to stay in Udon Thani
Not every neighbourhood fits every trip — here's what each one is good for.
Where you stay in Udon Thani turns on the town or the country. The streets around the centre keep the markets, the city park, and the shrines within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the city. The wide streets run flat.
Markets fill the lanes. Out toward Ban Chiang and the lake, the town gives way to the rice country, the ancient village, and the lotus lake. A room out of town trades the streets for the old pottery site, the pink lotus waters, and the quiet Isan fields.
The plateau runs flat and dry. Stay downtown for the markets, or out for the ancient sites. The centre lies a short way in.
About Udon Thani
Udon Thani is the northern hub of Isan.
What is Udon Thani known for?
On the dry Khorat plateau of northeastern Thailand near the Lao border, it grew as the market and city of the upper northeast, and it keeps the ancient pottery and bronze of Ban Chiang nearby, the pink Red Lotus Sea that blooms on a lake in the cool months, a busy Isan market and city park, and the Lao-flavoured food and life of the plateau. The flat plateau runs away. The dry land lies wide.
What are the main landmarks in Udon Thani?
Ban Chiang is the wonder of Udon Thani. The ancient village east of the town, where diggers found painted pots and bronze from thousands of years ago, is a world heritage of the deep past, the emblem of the province, on the plateau. A red lake blooms nearby.
The Red Lotus Sea covers a shallow lake with pink flowers each cool season, while the city park, the sandstone temples, and the Isan markets mark the country around Udon Thani.
What is the history of Udon Thani?
The land here is very old. On the plateau nearby, at a village called Ban Chiang, people made fine painted pottery and worked bronze thousands of years ago, in one of the oldest such cultures on earth, long buried and found again in our own time. The town came late.
Only a little over a hundred years ago a Siamese prince founded Udon Thani as a garrison and seat on the northern plateau, and a city grew around it. Udon grew as the hub of the upper northeast. As roads and rail reached the plateau, the town became the great market and centre of the region, drawing the trade of the Isan farms and the Lao border.
The wider world passed through. In the middle of the last century the town saw foreign airmen and money in the war years, and later it lived by rice, trade, and the crowds who came to see the ancient pottery and the pink lotus lake, keeping its market, its temples, and its Isan ways. The lotus still reddens the lake.
Udon Thani keeps its market and its ancient past on the plateau of Isan.
Where is Udon Thani?
Udon Thani lies in the northeast of Thailand, on the high Khorat plateau near the Mekong and Laos. The city sits on the flat dry uplands of Isan, a land of rice fields, low rises, and shallow lakes far from the sea, with the great river and the Lao hills to the north. The flat plateau spreads wide.
Rice fields fill the plain.
What is the climate of Udon Thani?
Udon Thani has a hot, dry tropical climate. Warm weather holds all year on the plateau, with a hot dry season, a green rainy season, and a cool spell in the winter months. The summer bakes the plain.
The rains flood the fields.
How do you get to Udon Thani?
Udon Thani lies on the Khorat plateau of northeastern Thailand, near Laos. Trains, buses, and flights reach it up from Bangkok and the plateau roads run to the Mekong, and the border lies close north. Buses cross the flat plateau.
Bangkok lies far to the south.
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Updated August 2026