Where to live in Uttaradit.

Tambon Tha It is the provincial town and the only genuinely walkable, service-dense place in Uttaradit. City Hall and the monument to Phraya Phichai Dap Hak, Uttaradit Hospital — a Ministry of Public Health regional hospital with tertiary capability and a CPIRD medical education centre training doctors for Naresuan University — Uttaradit Rajabhat University, the markets and the original railway station all sit within a short radius. Housing is shophouse rooms, small owner-run apartment blocks aimed at students and hospital staff, and townhouses. For most newcomers this is simply the right answer: it is the only part of the province where you can live without a vehicle, and the only part with the hospital on your doorstep.

Best for: Almost everyone — anyone wanting walkability, the hospital, the railway and everyday services in one place

Sila At was built in 1958, two kilometres north of the overcrowded original station, and first named "New Uttaradit". It is a Class 1 station 487.52km from Bangkok and became the Northern Line's major container yard, with the State Railway's Sector 3 train traffic, Northern Line maintenance and Sector 3 mechanical and engineering departments based here, plus a railway police station and a railway medical branch. A preserved Hanomag steam locomotive, No. 274, sits on the premises. The surrounding quarter is a working railway neighbourhood of staff housing, small owner-let blocks and local food stalls. It is cheaper than the centre and better connected to the trains, at the cost of a thinner range of everyday services.

Best for: Anyone whose life runs on the railway, or who wants the cheapest rooms in the provincial town

Laplae sits west of the town where the plain rises into wooded valleys. It is northern Thailand's biggest durian district — roughly 27,000 rai, about 43 km², under durian, including the famous odourless Longlaplae and Linlaplae varieties, with a festival each June. Wat Phra Thaen Sila At at Ban Phra Thaen is the temple whose mondop appears on the provincial seal, and nearby Mon Cham Sin holds the Phra Luea Buddha, cast from gold left over from Phitsanulok's Phra Phuttha Chinnarat. The district's name means "hidden from sight", and its legend of a village only the truthful can reach is one of the best-known local stories in Thailand. Housing is houses and rooms let directly by owners in villages, not estates. Beautiful, culturally rich — and you drive into town for everything.

Best for: People who want orchard country, cool valleys and real local culture, and will drive for services

South of the town the Nan valley flattens into rice country across Tron, Phichai and Thong Saen Khan. Phichai, the province's southernmost district, was one of the sixteen principal mueang of the Ayutthaya kingdom and the seat from which Phraya Phichai fought the Burmese in 1767; the provincial centre only moved north to the river port at the end of the nineteenth century, and the modern name Uttaradit dates from 1915. Tron holds the site of the Sukhothai-era Mueang Ta Chuchok. Today these are quiet agricultural districts along the rail and road corridor toward Phitsanulok. Housing means houses and farm compounds let by local owners — there is no organised rental market at all.

Best for: People who want genuinely rural Thailand at the province's lowest cost, and are comfortable an hour or more from tertiary care

Northeast of the town the province rises into Tha Pla, Nam Pat, Fak Tha and Ban Khok, running to the Lao border with Xaignabouli. About 45km north of the town, the Queen Sirikit Dam impounds the Nan into a reservoir of roughly 250 km², and beyond it Ton Sak Yai National Park holds what is recorded as the world's largest teak tree — around 37m tall, base circumference near ten metres, estimated at over 1,500 years old and discovered in 1927. Forest covers 4,415 km² of Uttaradit, or 55.9% of the province, and three national parks and four wildlife sanctuaries sit largely up here. There are district hospitals and schools but nothing tertiary, the roads wind, and every serious errand means driving back to town.

Best for: People who genuinely want remoteness, lake and forest scenery — and who plan for the isolation