Lamphun

Lamphun was the centre of Hariphunchai, an old Mon Buddhist kingdom in the valley of the Ping and Guang rivers. Tradition says the hermit Wasuthep founded the town and invited Queen Chamathewi from Lawo to rule it. At its heart stands Wat Phra That Hariphunchai, where, tradition says, a stupa of 897 enshrines a hair of the Buddha; the temple compound itself was founded in 1044 under King Athitayarat.

King Mangrai of Ngoenyang defeated the Mon kingdom in 1281, and Lamphun passed to his kingdom of Lan Na. Floods drove Mangrai from Lamphun to Wiang Kum Kam and on to Chiang Mai, but the old city kept its religious standing: in 1443 King Tilokaraja of Lan Na rebuilt the temple, and a verse account, the Nirat Hariphunchai, describes a pilgrimage from Chiang Mai to the shrine around 1517. From 1558 Lan Na was a Burmese vassal for some two centuries, until Kawila of Lampang, with Siamese help, drove the Burmese governor out of Chiang Mai in 1775.