Western · Thailand
Prachuap Khiri Khan · ประจวบคีรีขันธ์
Hua Hin, the royal seaside retreat; pineapples and Sam Roi Yot cliffs.
- Region
- Western
- Population
- 548,000
- Area
- 6,367 km²
- Stories filed
- 1
About Prachuap Khiri Khan
History
Prachuap Khiri Khan is a long, narrow gulf-coast province best known as the location of Hua Hin, the royal summer capital since King Rama VII built Klai Kangwon Palace there in 1926. The province's waist at Prachuap town — only twelve kilometres wide, the narrowest point in Thailand — made it strategically significant; Japanese forces landed here in December 1941 in their advance toward Singapore, and the brief resistance by the border police garrison is commemorated at a monument in town. The palace is still used by the royal family, giving Hua Hin an actively royal character unmatched by any other Thai beach resort.
Landscape & geography
A narrow coastal strip pinned between the Gulf of Thailand and the Tenasserim range, reaching its narrowest at Prachuap Khiri Khan town before widening slightly toward the Chumphon border. Wide white-sand beaches backed by casuarina groves define the coast; the Tenasserim hills rise directly behind the shoreline, limiting inland penetration. Sam Roi Yot — \"three hundred peaks\" — National Park at the southern end combines mangrove, limestone hills with cave-temples, and the Pranburi freshwater marsh in a rare coastal ecosystem.
Why visit
Hua Hin's royal association gives it a dignity absent from other Thai beach towns — Klai Kangwon palace, the vintage railway station, and the night market at Damnoenkasem Road are all worth a leisurely morning. Pranburi and Dolphin Bay to the south are quieter; Sam Roi Yot's Phraya Nakhon cave-temple — lit by sunlight through a sinkhole above a royal pavilion — is one of Thailand's most photographed cave interiors. Prachuap town itself has three sculpted limestone bays that look like a traditional Chinese landscape painting and serves the finest fresh crab on the gulf coast.
Stories from Prachuap Khiri Khan
Articles, reviews, and itineraries tagged to this province.
