Nan

Nan stands in a mountain-ringed valley on the river that bears its name. Its rulers descended from the Phukha dynasty of Pua, an older centre farther upstream. The town became the seat of a northern Tai principality, while Buddhist shrines such as Phra That Chae Haeng on the eastern side of the valley testified to its ties with Sukhothai and the wider religious world of the region.

In the fourteenth century the court moved south from Pua to Chae Haeng and then, in 1368, to the site of Wiang Nan. Earth walls and moats protected the settlement as it grew beside the river. Nan maintained close connections with Sukhothai, but in the middle of the fifteenth century King Tilokaraj of Chiang Mai brought it under the authority of Lan Na. The town later passed under Burmese domination along with other northern centres, before its rulers regained a place among the northern principalities allied to Siam.