Eastern · Thailand
Chon Buri · ชลบุรี
Pattaya, Koh Si Chang, Bangsaen beach — Bangkok's weekend coast.
- Region
- Eastern
- Population
- 1,588,000
- Area
- 4,363 km²
- Stories filed
- 0
About Chon Buri
History
Chonburi's port at Sriracha handled Gulf trade under Ayutthaya and later became a staging point for the nineteenth-century tin-and-teak economy. The province was transformed from the 1970s when the Eastern Seaboard development programme brought Laem Chabang — now Thailand's largest container port — to its coast, making Chonburi the industrial engine of the Eastern Economic Corridor. Simultaneously, the beach town of Pattaya evolved from a US military rest stop in the 1960s into one of Asia's most visited resorts, and Bang Saen became the weekend beach of choice for Bangkok's middle class.
Landscape & geography
A long Gulf of Thailand coastline running from the shallow bays at Bang Saen in the north to the deep-water anchorage at Laem Chabang in the south. The offshore island of Koh Larn — 30 minutes by ferry from Pattaya — has clear water and quiet beaches on its western face. Inland the terrain rises into low wooded hills, with Khao Kheow Open Zoo occupying a large forested tract near the provincial border.
Why visit
The Sanctuary of Truth — a colossal all-wood temple carved entirely without nails, depicting Hindu and Buddhist cosmology across four towering facades — is extraordinary and unmissable. Pattaya's beach strip offers water sports, Muay Thai stadiums, and the Floating Market; Koh Larn is the easy island escape. Khao Kheow Open Zoo's free-roaming animals and Nong Nooch Tropical Garden's sculpted topiary and orchid houses are popular family days. Sriracha's famed chilli sauce was born here; try it fresh at the town's harbour-front seafood restaurants.
Stories from Chon Buri
Articles, reviews, and itineraries tagged to this province.