The old name of Nakhon Sawan and a registered ancient monument in its own right — a town named in the chronicle of the old capital and in two inscriptions, whose surviving remains no state source consulted describes.
เมืองพระบาง · Mueang Phra Bang
| Official name | เมืองพระบาง — Mueang Phra Bang |
|---|---|
| Where | Pak Nam Pho, Mueang Nakhon Sawan, Nakhon Sawan |
| 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 Royal Gazette vol. 52, pp. 3687–3688, 8 March B.E. 2478 — ประกาศกรมศิลปากร กำหนดจำนวนโบราณสถานสำหรับชาติ, section 35, จังหวัดนครสวรรค์. The entry is the second in that provincial list, immediately after เขากบ, and names เมืองพระบาง, อำเภอปากน้ำโพ ตำบลปากน้ำโพ. This record is unusual in the department's register and the oddity is worth stating rather than smoothing over. The register carries เมืองพระบาง as a single point, at 15.712243, 100.138522, which is about a hundred metres from the point it gives for the monastery on Khao Kop — so the registered monument is anchored at the hill rather than at any walled enclosure on the plain. The register holds separate กำแพงเมือง-คูเมือง entries for three other ancient towns in this province, at Khok Mai Den, Ban Don Kha and Ban Thap Chumphon, and none for this one. What the 1935 instrument actually placed under protection, and where its boundary runs, is not stated by any source read for this entry. |
| Coordinates | 15.712243, 100.138522 Fine Arts Department national ancient monument register, monument 0003907 เมืองพระบาง, ตำบลปากน้ำโพ อำเภอเมืองนครสวรรค์ |
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.
There is a real gap between the documentary weight of the name and the physical evidence anyone can point at. Mueang Phra Bang is named in a chronicle, in an inscription at Kamphaeng Phet and in an inscription found on the hill here, and it has been a registered ancient monument since 1935 — and no state source read for this entry describes what survives of it on the ground, or where. That is the honest state of the record and it is printed here rather than filled in from a travel account.
Before there was a Nakhon Sawan there was a Mueang Phra Bang, and the second is on the national register as an ancient monument in its own right. It sits at the top of that register's Nakhon Sawan list, second only to the hill beside it, and it has been protected since the Fine Arts Department's national list of 8 March B.E. 2478. What it consists of physically is the difficulty. The register holds it as one point, a hundred metres or so from the point it gives for the monastery on Khao Kop, and unlike the three other ancient towns in this province it has no separate wall-and-moat entry to define its extent.
The name itself is solidly attested. The Luang Prasoet recension of the chronicle of the old capital — the recension historians treat as the most reliable for dates — records that in CS 781 the king travelled north as far as Mueang Phra Bang on news of the death of the great Dhammaraja and disorder in the northern towns, and that two lords, Phraya Ban Mueang and Phraya Ram, came out there to make their submission. That single sentence is the hinge on which the whole conventional history of this place turns, including the attribution of the monastery on the hill.
The name appears twice more. The Nakhon Chum inscription at Kamphaeng Phet refers to a Buddha footprint of the first Dhammaraja at a place it calls ปากยมพระบาง — the mouth of the Yom at Phra Bang — which is how Prince Damrong identified the footprint he found on the summit of Khao Kop in B.E. 2464. And the inscription he found there records a chedi and a vihara raised on that summit for a dead younger brother. Three documents, all of them about a frontier where the Sukhothai world met what lay south of it.
What a visitor will find today is a provincial city of a hundred thousand people at a river junction, with a hill on the west bank and a hill on the east. The town has grown over whatever was here. That is not a reason to leave the record out of a guide: the name explains the hill, the hill explains the inscription, and the inscription is the oldest thing anyone in Nakhon Sawan can point to. It is a reason to be exact about what is documented and what is not.
The confluence itself, at Pak Nam Pho in the middle of the town, where the Ping arriving from Chiang Mai and the Nan arriving from Nan meet and leave as the Chao Phraya. The two waters are visibly different colours for some distance below the junction.
Khao Kop on the west bank, the hill the register anchors this monument to and on which the Wat Khao Kop inscription was found in B.E. 2464.
Khao Buat Nak on the east bank, opposite, carrying Wat Chom Khiri Nak Phrot — the second registered monument of this pair of hills, listed in the same 1935 instrument.
The Dechatiwong Bridge, itself carried in the Fine Arts Department's register of sites in this province as monument 0017573, crossing between the two.
No visible defended enclosure. The register gives a point and not a perimeter, and nothing read for this entry describes a surviving wall or moat, so a visitor should not expect to find one.
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 | The registered point sits on the west bank at Pak Nam Pho, in the middle of the provincial town, immediately beside the hill carrying Wat Woranat Banphot. There is no gate, no enclosure and no marked site to enter. |
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.
That is the standard identification and the province's own telling, but it is an attribution rather than a documented continuity. No instrument read for this entry records when or how the name changed. What is documented is that a place of that name existed, that the chronicle of the old capital places a royal journey there in CS 781, and that the Fine Arts Department registered it here in 1935.
Physically, the confluence and the two hills either side of it. The register gives this monument a single point and no boundary, no state source read describes surviving earthworks, and there is no enclosure to walk around. Visitors come for the hill and the rivers, and the monument record is the reason the hill matters.
The Thai national register covers โบราณสถาน broadly, which includes ancient towns, walls and moats as well as temples. Three other ancient towns in this province are on the same register with separate wall-and-moat entries. Mueang Phra Bang is unusual in having no such entry, which is stated on this page rather than glossed over.
It refers to a Buddha footprint of the first Dhammaraja at a place it names ปากยมพระบาง. That phrase is how Prince Damrong identified the replica footprint he found on the summit of Khao Kop in B.E. 2464, and it is the reason the footprint there is connected to the Sukhothai court at all.
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 Nakhon Sawan’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.