Central · Thailand
Suphan Buri · สุพรรณบุรี
Don Chedi battle site, Bueng Chawak aquarium, buffalo village.
- Region
- Central
- Population
- 834,000
- Area
- 5,358 km²
- Stories filed
- 0
About Suphan Buri
History
Suphanburi — Suphannabhumi, "Land of Gold" — was a major Dvaravati kingdom hub by the seventh century and later a powerful Ayutthayan frontier city whose warrior families produced several kings. It gave literary birth to the Khun Chang Khun Phaen, Thailand's most beloved folk epic, whose hero Khun Phaen is celebrated in the town to this day. In the modern era, Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa's governing years in the 1990s brought roads and civic institutions that give Suphanburi an unusual polish for a Central province.
Landscape & geography
The province occupies the Tha Chin River plain in western Central Thailand, its flat rice and sugar-cane fields spreading west toward the Mae Klong watershed. U Thong subdistrict sits on a low ridge that was the likely site of the ancient Dvaravati city of Suphannabhumi; excavated Khmer prangs and Dvaravati artefacts continue to emerge from the surrounding fields. The extraordinary Bung Khong Long fills a shallow meteor-crater depression southeast of the capital.
Why visit
The Dragon Descendants Museum, dedicated to Suphanburi's claim as the origin of the Thai-Chinese dragon tradition, is an absorbing folk-art and mythology collection. U Thong Ancient City's excavation site and small museum display Dvaravati sculptures rarely seen outside Bangkok's national museum. Bung Khong Long meteor-crater lake is a unique natural curiosity — rent a kayak or watch wading birds from the shore. The Sam Chuk wooden market, a preserved century-old bazaar on the Tha Chin, is one of Central Thailand's most atmospheric old town centres.
Stories from Suphan Buri
Articles, reviews, and itineraries tagged to this province.
