The largest chedi in Chiang Mai, broken at the top by the earthquake of B.E. 2088 and left that way — and the shrine of the Inthakhin, the city pillar, in the courtyard beside it.
วัดเจดีย์หลวงวรวิหาร · Wat Chedi Luang Worawihan
| Official name | วัดเจดีย์หลวงวรวิหาร — Wat Chedi Luang Worawihan |
|---|---|
| Where | Phra Sing, Mueang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai |
| Royal temple class | Not established from an official register. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument The Fine Arts Department's register service returns the status for site 0003577 as โบราณสถานขึ้นทะเบียนและกำหนดเขตที่ดินโบราณสถาน — registered, with the monument land boundary determined — and a boundary polygon exists for it in the department's gazette-boundary layer. The department's regional office names Wat Chedi Luang among the fifteen Chiang Mai monuments registered in the first round of B.E. 2478 and states that all fifteen were re-registered with boundary plans between B.E. 2520 and 2524. No source we could open cites a gazette volume and page for this temple by name, so none is claimed here. |
| Coordinates | 18.787282, 98.986535 Fine Arts Department national monument register, site 0003577 |
Thai temple histories mix two different kinds of statement, and this guide keeps them apart. What a register, a gazette entry, an inscription or a dated royal act shows is one thing. What the chronicles and the temple itself hold is another, and it is worth telling as what it is.
Two of the best-known figures attached to this temple do not agree between government sources. The Tourism Authority and DASTA both say the Emerald Buddha was enshrined here between B.E. 2011 and 2091, which they call eighty years; the ONEP register says seventy-nine and gives no dates. On the Inthakhin city pillar, the Tourism Authority and DASTA both say it was made when Mangrai founded the city in B.E. 1839 and both are silent on when it arrived at this temple, which is a different question and one no source consulted answers.
The great chedi is a ruin on purpose. It stands 40.8 metres to its broken top, on a base 60 metres a side, and the reason it stops where it stops is a storm and a great earthquake in B.E. 2088, in the reign of Queen Chiraprapha, which brought the upper structure down. Every state source that describes the monument gives that as the terminal event, and nobody since has rebuilt the missing height. What you look at is the lower two-thirds of a building that was, by the chronicle numbers, once about half as tall again.
Its construction is a three-generation story with an unusual amount of documentary texture. The Fine Arts Department's National Library in Chiang Mai has set out the chronology from the Jinakalamalipakaranam and the temple's own chronicle: Phaya Saen Mueang Ma began it in B.E. 1934, to a date given to the day, and the reason the chronicle gives for beginning it at all is a vision — a merchant on the road to Pagan met a tree deity who said he had been Phaya Kuena, the king's father, and asked for a chedi taller than all others so that people four kilometres away might see it and make merit for him. Work ran a decade and stopped when the king died. His grandson Sam Fang Kaen was a child, so the regent, Queen Tilokachutha, finished it in B.E. 1955, and the chronicle records what went on top: a gold parasol of 8,902 siao kham and three jewels.
Then Tilokarat rebuilt it bigger. The library's account names the master builder — Muen Dam Phra Khot, who appears in the Jinakalamali as Sihagotra Senabodi and in the temple's own chronicle as Muen Dam Sihakhot, which is a useful reminder that Lanna sources name the same man four ways — and describes what the job actually involved: three days spent failing to find a way to the top, a consultation with the abbot, six named men who finally made the climb, a foundation trench dug four wa wider on each side and two wa deep and packed with stone and sand. Tilokarat sent the builder and a team of draughtsmen to Lanka to copy the Lohaprasat and the Ratanamali chedi before the design was settled. The work took three years and finished in B.E. 2024, at a base of about 28 wa and a height of about 45.
For eighty-odd years this was where the Emerald Buddha lived. The Tourism Authority and DASTA both date its residence here from B.E. 2011 to 2091; ONEP says seventy-nine years and gives no dates. It left for Luang Prabang and eventually for the chapel royal in Bangkok, and a jade replica now stands in the eastern niche. The courtyard also holds the Inthakhin, the city pillar of Chiang Mai, in a small four-porched Thai-style shrine — a large log buried in the ground, honoured every year at the Khao Inthakhin festival on the twelfth waning day of the eighth northern month, which falls around May. The temple is a working monastery with a monks' chat programme, a museum and a substantial teaching presence; it is not a ruin park.
The chedi itself: a great prasat-form Lanna monument, square in plan, with a bell-shaped upper element set over a very large square terrace. Elephants run around the top of the terrace and niches on all four sides hold Buddha images. The chronicle numbers for the finished building — eight nagas of five heads each flanking the stairs, four lions bracing the feet of the prasat, twenty-eight elephants — can still be checked against what survives, which is part of the pleasure of it.
The Wihan Luang in front is not old. DASTA records that it was built in B.E. 2471 by Chao Khun Ubali Khunupamachan and Chao Kaeo Nawarat, in Lanna form. Inside stands Phra Attharot, a bronze image in the attitude of dispelling fear, 18 sok high, in an early Chiang Mai manner that shows Pala influence from India. The stair to its door carries a pair of nagas whose tails sweep up to form the door arch; they are old work and much photographed.
The Inthakhin shrine stands to the west of the vihara: a small four-porched building of Thai form housing the city pillar. Around it, the temple keeps a set of things a visitor rarely expects at a monument site — the Wihan Burapachan, the Wihan Phra Ajahn Mun, an open sala with a reclining Buddha, a dhamma hall and museum, and a shrine to the guardian yaksha, Kumphan.
The gum tree in the compound is part of the Inthakhin observance rather than landscaping, and the annual festival that centres on the pillar is the one occasion when the courtyard is genuinely full of the city rather than of visitors.
This is a working place of worship for millions of people rather than an attraction, and it is treated as one at the gate. Where a figure below is blank, no source we are prepared to cite states it.
| Hours | Not established from an official source. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | Not established from an official source. |
| Photography | No source we found states a rule, so we print none. |
| Getting there | 103 Phra Pokklao Road, in the middle of the old city inside the moat. The Tourism Authority lists parking and toilets on site and gives a temple telephone number of 06 4483 3963. |
Every temple reference repeats claims nobody has checked. These are the ones we went looking for and could not stand up, listed so you know exactly where this page stops.
A storm and a major earthquake in B.E. 2088, during the reign of Queen Chiraprapha, brought the upper part of the monument down. That is the account given by the Fine Arts Department's National Library in Chiang Mai, by DASTA and by the ONEP register alike, and it is the terminal event in every version of the temple's history. The surviving structure stands 40.8 metres high on a base 60 metres a side. Nobody has rebuilt the lost height, and the broken profile is now the building's most recognisable feature.
Yes, and for a long time. The Tourism Authority of Thailand and DASTA both record that the image was enshrined at this chedi between B.E. 2011 and 2091, which they describe as eighty years; the ONEP cultural-environment register says seventy-nine years without giving dates. The image later went to Luang Prabang and eventually to the chapel royal inside the Grand Palace in Bangkok. What stands in the eastern niche today is a replica, and the niche it occupies is the original setting.
The city pillar of Chiang Mai, housed in a small four-porched shrine in the temple courtyard. The Tourism Authority and DASTA both describe it as a large log set into the ground and both date its making to the founding of the city in B.E. 1839. Once a year, on the twelfth waning day of the eighth northern month — around May — the city holds the Khao Inthakhin festival to honour it. Neither source says when the pillar came to this temple, which is a separate question and one we could not answer from any official record.
The chronicle figures are the only ones there are, and they describe two different buildings. Queen Tilokachutha's completed chedi of B.E. 1955 is given at 39 wa from ground to summit. Tilokarat's rebuilding of B.E. 2022 to 2024 is given at about 45 wa high on a base about 28 wa a side, and the chronicle says it was visible from 2,000 wa away — roughly four kilometres, which was the point of building it. Against that, the surviving structure is 40.8 metres. Converting between the two systems is not something the sources do for you.
Before you go, read the guide to Buddhism and temple etiquette in Thailand — dress, footwear, where photography is not welcome and how to behave around monks. The rest of Chiang Mai’s temples are covered here too.
Every temple here sits in a place worth reading about on its own terms. The nationwide temple guide covers the other provinces to the same documentary standard as this page, and says on each one what the record establishes and what it does not.
If you are thinking about more than a visit: work out which Thai visa route fits your situation, and see what is available to rent and buy in residences across Thailand.
Every fact on this page is drawn from the sources above. Where they disagree, this page says so rather than choosing silently. Registrations, fees, hours and access change; confirm anything you are relying on with the authority concerned. BAANLYY LLC is a Nevada company and a listing portal, does not represent any temple, and offers no legal or religious advice.