Nakhon Sri Thammarat

Thammarat, or Nakhon Si Thammarat, stands on the eastern Malay Peninsula between the Gulf of Siam and the mountain routes to the western coast. Its great monastery of Wat Phra Mahathat is a major centre of Theravada Buddhism, with a revered relic stupa rising above the city. The region was the heartland of Tambralinga, an earlier kingdom connected to the maritime world of Southeast Asia.

By the thirteenth century Nakhon had become a prominent centre of Buddhist religion and regional power. It later entered Ayutthaya's political sphere; a law of 1468 counted it among the kingdom's great cities. Its governors maintained relationships with neighbouring towns and Malay states farther south. After Ayutthaya fell in 1767, a local ruler established an independent base here before the reunification of Siam under Taksin brought the southern city back into the kingdom.