The great temple of the walled town, where the rulers of Nan swore the oath of allegiance and where their ashes are kept — its bell chedi ringed by twenty-four stucco elephants that appear to be holding it up.
วัดพระธาตุช้างค้ำวรวิหาร · Wat Phra That Chang Kham Worawihan
| Official name | วัดพระธาตุช้างค้ำวรวิหาร — Wat Phra That Chang Kham Worawihan |
|---|---|
| Where | Nai Wiang, Mueang Nan, Nan |
| Royal temple class | Third class royal temple, Worawihan (ชั้นตรี วรวิหาร) The Sangha Supreme Council of Thailand, whose record is operated by the National Office of Buddhism, renders the formula "วัดพระธาตุช้างค้ำ … พระอารามหลวง ชั้นตรี ชนิดวรวิหาร" in five separate resolutions on the appointment of assistant abbots, and the Ministry of Culture's open cultural-site dataset gives the same classification. The sub-rank is also carried inside the temple's own official name. One honest limit: the council's site is Cloudflare-protected and TIS-620 encoded, and this classification was read in the indexed text of those official pages rather than by opening them, so it is state-sourced but not firsthand-verified in this run. |
| Monastic order | Not recorded in any register we could read. |
| Ancient monument | Registered national ancient monument Royal Gazette vol. 61, part 65, 24 October B.E. 2487, pp. 2060–2062 Both instruments were opened and read in this run through the Fine Arts Department's mirror of the gazette scans. The registration is the same notification of 24 October B.E. 2487 that registered Phra That Chae Haeng — the department serves a byte-identical file under both monuments — issued 16 October B.E. 2487 under section 6 of the Act B.E. 2477 and signed by Phraya Anuman Rajadhon. This entry, unlike Chae Haeng's, is itemised: under จังหวัดน่าน, item 3 reads "พระธาตุวัดช้างค้ำ และพระประธานในวิหาร" — the chedi AND the principal Buddha image in the wihan. The image is part of the registered monument, not merely furniture inside it. The land boundary was fixed separately by an announcement in Royal Gazette vol. 97, part 123, p. 2741, of 12 August B.E. 2523, which names the temple วัดช้างค้ำวรวิหาร and sets the monument at about ๕ ไร่ ๘๒ ตารางวา; announced 1 July B.E. 2523, signed เดโช สวนานนท์, Director-General. The department's live register carries the same figure as 5-0-82. |
Nai Wiang, Mueang Nan, Nan
The exact location has not been confirmed yet.
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.
The Fine Arts Department does not endorse the year B.E. 1949. Its Nan National Museum states that the founding date cannot be determined, presumes a date around the founding of Mueang Nan in the twentieth Buddhist century on the evidence of the elephant-encircled chedi, and gives Phaya Phu Kheng's reign as B.E. 1950–1960 — a range that does not contain 1949. So the tradition is contradicted on its own terms by the department's regnal dates. Where the tradition does unusually well is the second half: the inscriptions genuinely record Ngua Lara Pha Sum casting five images in the 1420s, two of them here.
Wat Phra That Chang Kham stands on Thanon Suriyaphong in the middle of old Nan, directly opposite the building that was the rulers' residence and is now the Nan National Museum. Its older names say what it was: Wat Luang, the great temple, or Wat Luang Klang Wiang, the great temple in the middle of the walled town. It is a third-class royal monastery of the worawihan sub-rank, and it was the ruler's temple — the place where the important Buddhist ceremonies of the principality were performed and where the oath of allegiance was drunk.
The name people use now comes from the chedi. It is a bell-form stupa in the Lankan manner, and around its base, in brick and stucco, stand half-figures of elephants — five along each side and one at each of the four corners, twenty-four in all — with their backs to the drum, so that they appear to be carrying it. Chang kham means, roughly, elephants propping up. The Fine Arts Department reads the form as Sukhothai influence arriving in Phu Kha-dynasty Nan and compares it directly to Wat Chang Lom at Si Satchanalai, and it is this chedi rather than any document that the department uses to date the temple to about the twentieth Buddhist century.
The documents that do exist here are inscribed on bronze, and they are the best dated evidence anywhere in this province. In October B.E. 2523 a Fine Arts Department survey ahead of the opening of the Nan National Museum turned over the bases of images at temples across Nan and found forty-three inscribed ones. Two of them are here. The first, in Sukhothai script, records Somdet Phaya Sara Pha Sum, reigning in Nantapura, establishing five images to uphold the religion, and gives Chulasakarat 788 — read as B.E. 1969 or 1970, so 1426 or 1427. The second, in Tham Lanna script, dates to B.E. 2132, in the years when Lanna was under Burma, and records a donor who exchanged himself for a sum of money to have the image made.
A third inscription, stone number 74, was found within the temple and records something more workaday and just as useful: that Phaya Phonthep Ruechai, ruler of Nan, restored the wihan luang in B.E. 2091. Between them these three stones do what a chronicle cannot — they put dated royal patronage on this site in the 1420s, the 1540s and the 1580s, without anyone having to guess.
The wihan holds two images worth separating. The one in the older bronzes is Phra Phuttha Nanthaburi Si Sakayamuni, which the Tourism Authority of Thailand describes as bronze in the attitude of granting protection, 1.45 metres tall, of the later nineteenth Buddhist century and so late Sukhothai, with a gold content it gives as 65 per cent. The principal image is a different and much larger thing: big stucco work that TAT assigns to Chiang Saen art in the hand of the Nan school. It is the principal image, together with the chedi, that the 1944 notification actually registered.
The temple is not a monument only. It houses a school and a Phrapariyattidhamma school, and in its compound stands the ku holding the ashes of the rulers of Nan, which is the focus of an annual rite the province attends. Visiting hours below are what the state publishes; BAANLYY does not represent the temple and nothing here is religious advice.
The chedi: a Lankan bell form whose brick-and-stucco base carries half-figures of elephants, five to a side and four at the corners — twenty-four — set with their backs against the drum so that they read as supporting it. The Tourism Authority of Thailand gives the count in exactly those terms and compares the arrangement to Wat Chang Lom in Sukhothai; the Fine Arts Department uses the same form as its principal evidence for dating the temple.
Phra Phuttha Nanthaburi Si Sakayamuni in the wihan: bronze, in the attitude of granting protection, 1.45 m tall, dated by the Tourism Authority of Thailand to the later nineteenth Buddhist century and described as 65 per cent gold. The Fine Arts Department's description of this image runs to the oval face, the flame rasmi, the robe over both shoulders and the pleated front panel, and notes that the double-abhaya gesture together with that pleated panel are Ayutthaya traits — so the image carries Ayutthaya as well as Sukhothai influence.
The principal image: large stucco work assigned by the Tourism Authority of Thailand to Chiang Saen art in the hand of the Nan school. It is named in the 1944 registration alongside the chedi, which makes it part of the registered monument rather than a furnishing.
The department's walking bronze from the same royal group: robe over one shoulder with the right shoulder bare, the sanghati falling to the navel and ending in a centipede-fang tip, the left hand raised to the chest with the drapery rippling naturally beneath it, the left foot advanced and the right heel slightly lifted. The Fine Arts Department flags the diagonally cut lower hem as a local Nan departure from Sukhothai practice.
The ku holding the ashes of the rulers of Nan, in the compound — the site of an annual rite attended by the province.
The setting itself: the temple faces the former Ho Kham, the rulers' residence, now the Nan National Museum, which is open Wednesday to Sunday 09.00–16.00 and charges 20 baht for Thai visitors and 100 baht for foreign visitors. Wat Phumin is a few minutes' walk away.
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 | Open daily 06.00–18.00. Stated in the body text of the Tourism Authority of Thailand's attraction page, read in a rendering browser on 7 September 2026; the page's structured opening-hours field carries no times. |
|---|---|
| Admission | Not established from an official source. |
| Dress | An active royal monastery with a resident teaching community: shoulders and knees covered, shoes off before entering the wihan. No official dress notice was found. |
| Photography | No official restriction was found. Treat the ordination hall and any monk at prayer as off limits unless invited. |
| Getting there | Thanon Suriyaphong, Tambon Nai Wiang, Amphoe Mueang Nan, in the historic core opposite the Nan National Museum and the municipal tourist service point. Wat Phumin is a few minutes away on foot, which makes the two a single short walk. |
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.
Twenty-four: the Tourism Authority of Thailand describes five half-figures of elephants along each side of the brick-and-stucco base and one at each of the four corners, set with their backs against the drum so that they appear to be propping it up, which is what the name chang kham means. The form is not local invention. The Fine Arts Department reads it as Sukhothai influence reaching Nan under the Phu Kha dynasty and compares it directly with Wat Chang Lom at Si Satchanalai, and uses this chedi as its main evidence for dating the temple to around the twentieth Buddhist century.
An inscription on the base of a standing bronze in the wihan, in Sukhothai Thai script, giving Chulasakarat 788 — read as B.E. 1970 by Thoem Meetem and as B.E. 1969 by Prasert na Nagara, so 1426 or 1427. Its text records Somdet Phaya Sara Pha Sum, reigning in Nantapura, establishing five images to uphold the religion; two of the five are kept here and two more at Wat Phaya Phu. It was found in the Fine Arts Department's survey of October B.E. 2523 and published in the department's volume on Sukhothai inscriptions in B.E. 2526.
That year comes from the Nan provincial office of the National Office of Buddhism and from Nan Municipality, and it is tradition rather than record. The Fine Arts Department declines to give a founding year at all: its Nan National Museum states that the date cannot be determined, presumes a date around the founding of Mueang Nan in the twentieth Buddhist century on the evidence of the elephant chedi, and gives Chao Pu Khaeng's reign as B.E. 1950–1960 — a span that does not include 1949. The two state accounts contradict each other and this page prints both rather than choosing.
The chedi and the principal Buddha image in the wihan. The notification of 24 October B.E. 2487, opened and read in this run, itemises the Nan entries, and item 3 reads in full "พระธาตุวัดช้างค้ำ และพระประธานในวิหาร". That is unusual and worth noting: at most temples the registration names a building, while here an image is part of the protected monument. The land boundary came later, in an announcement of 12 August B.E. 2523 that set the monument at about 5 rai 82 square wa.
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 Nan’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.