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Temples of Bangkok

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Bangkok's temples are concentrated for an administrative reason rather than a devotional one. When Rama I moved the capital across the river in 1782 he rebuilt the Ayutthaya religious establishment on the new site, and every reign since has added to it, so the old royal city holds a density of royal monasteries found nowhere else in the country. The grading you will see quoted — first, second and third class, with sub-ranks such as Ratchaworamahawihan — is an official fact recorded in the state registers, not a ranking invented for visitors. It is also the single most useful thing on a temple page, because it tells you why one temple outranks another.

These eighteen pages cover the temples most people come for, and then the ones they find next. They are built from the Fine Arts Department's national monument register and its published monographs, the Department of Religious Affairs temple register, the Bureau of the Royal Household, UNESCO, named university and research-institute databases, and the temples' own publications. Where a claim you have read elsewhere turns out to rest on nothing we could check, this guide says so rather than repeating it — and there are more of those than you might expect, including the step count at the Golden Mount, the quarry that supplied the Marble Temple and the reason the Giant Swing stopped swinging.

On the map

Temples in Bangkok

11 of 18 temples in Bangkok are plotted. The others have no confirmed coordinate yet, so they are not shown as pins.

The temples

18 temples covered in Bangkok

Wat Phra Kaew — the Temple of the Emerald Buddhaวัดพระศรีรัตนศาสดาราม · Phra NakhonThe chapel royal of the Grand Palace, built with Bangkok itself in 1782, housing the Emerald Buddha and the only major temple in the country with no resident monks.Special class royal temple · Carried in the national monument register; no gazette registration recordedWat Pho — the Temple of the Reclining Buddhaวัดพระเชตุพนวิมลมังคลาราม ราชวรมหาวิหาร · Phra NakhonRama I's temple and the reign's own, rebuilt from an older Ayutthaya-era monastery, holding a 46-metre reclining Buddha and a stone library of 1,431 inscriptions on the UNESCO Memory of the World register.First class royal temple, Ratchaworamahawihan · Registered national ancient monumentWat Arun — the Temple of Dawnวัดอรุณราชวรารามราชวรมหาวิหาร · Bangkok YaiThe royal temple of Taksin's Thonburi capital, where the Emerald Buddha was kept from 1779 to 1784, with a porcelain-clad prang laid out as a model of the Buddhist universe.First class royal temple, Ratchaworamahawihan · Carried in the national monument register; gazette announcement unreadWat Saket and the Golden Mountวัดสระเกศราชวรมหาวิหาร · Pom Prap Sattru PhaiA collapsed royal chedi that became an artificial hill, crowned in 1865 and holding relics presented by the Government of India to King Chulalongkorn in 1898 — and, for much of the nineteenth century, the city's crematory ground.Second class royal temple, Ratchaworamahawihan · Carried in the national monument register; gazette announcement unreadWat Benchamabophit — the Marble Templeวัดเบญจมบพิตรดุสิตวนาราม ราชวรวิหาร · DusitRama V's temple, built in Italian marble to Prince Naris's design as compensation for two temples cleared for Dusit Palace, holding fifty-two Buddha images assembled by Prince Damrong as a comparative collection.First class royal temple, Ratchaworawihan · Registered national ancient monumentWat Suthat and the Giant Swingวัดสุทัศนเทพวรารามราชวรมหาวิหาร · Phra NakhonRama I's temple across three reigns, built around a Sukhothai bronze brought down from Wat Mahathat in 1808, with the longest ordination hall in Thailand and the Giant Swing outside its gate.First class royal temple, Ratchaworamahawihan · Registered national ancient monumentWat Traimit — the Temple of the Golden Buddhaวัดไตรมิตรวิทยารามวรวิหาร · SamphanthawongA Chinatown temple of no established founding date that turned out, in 1955, to be holding five and a half centuries of solid gold under a skin of plaster.Second class royal temple, WorawihanWat Ratchanatdaram and the Loha Prasatวัดราชนัดดารามวรวิหาร · Phra NakhonRama III's metal castle of 1846, the only building of its form standing anywhere, finished more than a century after the king who began it died.Royal class not establishedWat Bowonniwet Vihara — the king's monasteryวัดบวรนิเวศวิหารราชวรวิหาร · Phra NakhonThe monastery where a monk-prince reformed Thai Buddhism from the inside, held the abbacy for fourteen years, and then left it to be crowned Rama IV.First class royal temple, RatchaworawihanWat Rakhang Kositaram — the Temple of the Bellวัดระฆังโฆสิตารามวรมหาวิหาร · Bangkok NoiThe Thonburi-bank temple where Taksin's sangha was reorganised and Rama I's own house still stands as a scripture library — and whose famous bell story historians have been picking apart for years.Royal class not establishedWat Kalayanamit — the temple of the good friendวัดกัลยาณมิตรวรมหาวิหาร · ThonburiA riverside temple of 1825 built by a Chinese-Thai nobleman on the site of his own house, holding a fifteen-metre seated Buddha that Chinese Bangkok has venerated as Sam Po Kong ever since.Second class royal temple, Woramahawihan · Carried in the national monument register; gazette announcement unreadWat Prayurawongsawat — the white chedi at the bridgeวัดประยุรวงศาวาสวรวิหาร · ThonburiA Bunnag family temple on the Thonburi bank whose great white chedi gave up a sealed relic chamber in 2007 and won UNESCO's top Asia-Pacific conservation award in 2013.Royal class not established · Carried in the national monument register; gazette announcement unreadWat Ratchabophit Sathit Maha Simaram — the Gothic hall inside a Thai templeวัดราชบพิธสถิตมหาสีมารามราชวรวิหาร · Phra NakhonRama V's own monastery, orthodox Thai on the outside and a Gothic hall within, wrapped in five-colour glazed tile and ringed by a royal cemetery of gold-mosaic stupas.First class royal temple, Ratchaworawihan · Carried in the national monument register; gazette announcement unreadWat Ratchapradit — the first monastery built for the Dhammayutวัดราชประดิษฐสถิตมหาสีมารามราชวรวิหาร · Phra NakhonRama IV's small, dense monastery beside Saranrom Park — the first built from the ground up for the reform order he founded, with Japanese mother-of-pearl doors and a mural cycle of the twelve-month royal ceremonies.First class royal temple, Ratchaworawihan · Carried in the national monument register; no gazette registration recordedWat Mahathat Yuwaratrangsarit — where the canon was revisedวัดมหาธาตุยุวราชรังสฤษฎิ์ราชวรมหาวิหาร · Phra NakhonThe old monastery on the west side of Sanam Luang, older than Bangkok, where Rama I convened the first Rattanakosin revision of the Pali canon in 1788 because it stood between the two palaces.First class royal temple, Ratchaworamahawihan · Carried in the national monument register; gazette announcement unreadWat Thepthidaram — the princess's temple and Sunthorn Phu's kutiวัดเทพธิดารามวรวิหาร · Phra NakhonRama III's first foundation, built for his favourite daughter, with Chinese-derived roofs that carry no chofa, fifty-two cast bhikkhuni inside the vihara, and the kuti where Sunthorn Phu lived as a monk.Third class royal temple, Worawihan · Carried in the national monument register; gazette announcement unreadWat Chana Songkhram — the Mon monastery of the victoryวัดชนะสงครามราชวรมหาวิหาร · Phra NakhonThe Mon monastery a street back from Khaosan Road, restored by Rama I's brother and renamed for his victories, with the ashes of the Front Palace princes walled into five niches behind the principal image.Second class royal temple, Ratchaworamahawihan · Carried in the national monument register; no gazette registration recordedWat Intharawihan — the great standing Buddha at Bang Khun Phromวัดอินทรวิหาร พระอารามหลวง · Phra NakhonA Bang Khun Phrom temple in a Lao quarter, dominated by an unfinished colossus begun by Somdet To in 1867 and completed half a century after his death.Third class royal temple, Saman · Carried in the national monument register; gazette announcement unread
How this guide works

Where these facts come from

Every page is built from the National Office of Buddhism and Department of Religious Affairs registers, the Fine Arts Department’s national monument register and its published monographs, the Royal Gazette where it could be read, UNESCO, and the temples’ own material — with the Tourism Authority of Thailand used only for visiting practicalities, never for history. Nothing here is taken from a travel blog, a listicle or a review site.

The rule that governs every page is that recorded tradition is not history. Thai temple histories are full of foundation legends, and they are worth telling — but told as tradition, in those words, never flattened into a bare founding date. Where a date is not established, the page says so, and that sentence is the useful part.

Still to come here: Bangkok is complete at eighteen temples over three runs. The queue advances to Chiang Mai: Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Phra Singh, Wat Chiang Man, Wat Umong and Wat Suan Dok. Wat Pho Chai, once listed here, is in Nong Khai and belongs to a Nong Khai run.

Next

Before you go

Read the guide to Buddhism and temple etiquette in Thailand first — dress, footwear, photography and how to behave around monks. Then the Bangkok city guide and things to do in Bangkok for everything around them.

Staying longer? Work out which Thai visa route fits your situation, read where to live in Bangkok, and browse residences and rentals.