Northeastern · Thailand
Nakhon Ratchasima · นครราชสีมา
Khao Yai national park, Korat cats, gateway to Isan.
- Region
- Northeastern
- Population
- 2,636,000
- Area
- 20,494 km²
- Stories filed
- 0
About Nakhon Ratchasima
History
Nakhon Ratchasima — known universally as Korat — was founded by the kings of Ayutthaya as the primary fortress guarding the passage from the central plain to the Khorat Plateau, a strategic role that kept it the most fortified provincial capital in the northeast for four centuries. Its defining historical moment came in 1826, when a Laotian army under Anuvong of Vientiane occupied the town and began moving prisoners south. Ya Mo — Thao Suranari, wife of the deputy governor — organised the captives into a counter-attack and drove the invaders back; her shrine at the city gate remains one of Thailand's most actively venerated monuments, surrounded by offerings year-round. The province is also home to Phimai, the twelfth-century Khmer sanctuary that many scholars consider architecturally finer than Angkor Wat's outer galleries.
Landscape & geography
The province occupies the south-western shelf of the Khorat Plateau, ringed by the Dong Phaya Yen–Khao Yai mountain range on its western and southern edges. Khao Yai — Thailand's first national park, established in 1962, and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2005 — sprawls across some 2,200 square kilometres of monsoon forest, sheltering wild elephants, Siamese crocodiles, and one of the highest densities of hornbills in mainland Asia. The province is the largest in Thailand by area, its terrain switching from highland forest in the south to flat-to-rolling rice and cassava country in the north and east.
Why visit
Khao Yai is the main event for most visitors: dawn gibbon calls, elephant sightings on the main road, night drives spotting sambar deer, and a growing cluster of vineyards along the Pak Chong approach. Phimai Historical Park — a sandstone Khmer sanctuary built in the eleventh century, connected by a royal road to Angkor — is an hour north of Korat city and rarely crowded, rewarding a slow half-day of exploration. Pak Thong Chai district, just south of the city, is the silk-weaving capital of the region, where factory shops sell lengths of raw and finished Thai silk directly to visitors. The province requires at least four nights to do justice to its range.
Stories from Nakhon Ratchasima
Articles, reviews, and itineraries tagged to this province.