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Lopburi province

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Lopburi
ลพบุรี
Province
(Clockwise from top left) Ridge of Pa Sak Jolasid Dam, Gate of King Narai's Palace, Sunflower fields in Phatthana Nikhom, Market by railway in Chai Badan, Sa Kaeo Roundabout, Phra Prang Sam Yot
Official seal of Lopburi
Seal
Nicknames: 
Lavo (Thai: ละโว้)
Mueang Ling (lit. City of Monkeys)
Motto: 
วังนารายณ์คู่บ้าน ศาลพระกาฬคู่เมือง ปรางค์สามยอดลือเลื่อง เมืองแห่งดินสอพอง เขื่อนป่าสักชลสิทธิ์เกริกก้อง แผ่นดินทองสมเด็จพระนารายณ์
("King Narai's Palace, the pride of the land; San Phra Kan Shrine, the guardian of the city; Phra Prang Sam Yot, renowned through time; the land of Dinso Phong; Pa Sak Jolasid Dam, a resounding landmark; the golden realm of King Narai.")
Map of Thailand highlighting Lop Buri province
Map of Thailand highlighting Lop Buri province
CountryThailand
CapitalLopburi
Government
 • GovernorAmphon Angkapakornkun
 • PAO Chief ExecutiveOrapin Jiraphanwanit
Area
[1]
 • Total
6,493 km2 (2,507 sq mi)
 • Rank31st
Population
 (2024)[2]
 • Total
Decrease725,266
 • Rank35th
 • Density112/km2 (290/sq mi)
  • Rank45th
Human Achievement Index
[3]
 • HAI (2022)0.6529 "somewhat high"
Ranked 23rd
GDP
[4]
 • Totalbaht 112 billion
(US$3.6 billion) (2019)
Time zoneUTC+7 (ICT)
Postal code
15xxx
Calling code036
ISO 3166 codeTH-16
Vehicle registrationลพบุรี
Websitelopburi.go.th

Lopburi (Thai: ลพบุรี, RTGS: Lop Buri,[5] pronounced [lóp bū.rīː]) is a province in the central region of Thailand. The province is divided into 11 administrative districts, and Mueang Lopburi district is the capital. With over 720,000 people, the province is Thailand's 31st largest area and 35th most populous. There are eight neighbouring provinces, Phetchabun, Chaiyaphum, Nakhon Ratchasima, Saraburi, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Ang Thong, Sing Buri, and Nakhon Sawan.

Historic buildings, artefacts and prehistoric settlement sites are recorded across the province. Lopburi was formerly called Lavo. The kingdom had been ruled by an absolute monarch.

History

[edit]
Historical affiliations

Kingdom of Lavo 6th century–1351[a]
Khmer empire 802–1052[b]

Thailand Kingdom of Ayutthaya 1351–1767
Thailand Kingdom of Thonburi 1767–1782
Thailand Kingdom of Siam 1782–1932
Thailand Kingdom of Thailand 1932–present

Origins and the Lavo period

[edit]

Known as Lavo during much of its history, Lopburi probably dates to prehistoric times.[6] Fiorella Rispoli, Roberto Ciarla and Vincent Pigott have set out a cultural sequence for the Lopburi region in which social complexity accelerates from the late first millennium BCE. Objects of Indian origin enter the record from about 200 CE, among them glass, carnelian and agate beads, terracotta ear ornaments and stone skin rubbers. The authors read the sequence as continuity rather than rupture, and place the transition to early statehood between the 3rd and the 6th centuries.[7]: 380  About 20 km northeast of the town, the moated site of Phromthin Tai [th] has been investigated by Thanik Lertcharnrit since 2004. It was occupied from the Bronze Age through to the Dvaravati period, with a Dvaravati layer of the 6th to 9th centuries above an Iron Age layer assigned, on radiocarbon dates whose ranges vary widely, to 500 BCE–500 CE. Lertcharnrit states that there was no break in occupation between the two.[7]: 388  Stephen A. Murphy takes both sequences as support for a transitional proto-Dvaravati phase in the 4th and 5th centuries.[7]: 380, 388 

The name Lavo originated from the capital city of Lavo kingdom, an ancient Mon kingdom of the Dvaravati period (6th–11th century CE).[8] Khmer builders raised many of the temples that stand in the city. Lopburi sent its own embassies to China in 1115 and 1155, which has been read as a period of independence. The weight those embassies carry rests on a convention of the field, which David K. Wyatt states as the assumption that a tribute mission to the Chinese court indicates independence, or a bid for it. The mission of 1155 changed a reading of the Dong Mae Nang Mueang inscription. George Cœdès had held that Lopburi lacked the standing to have the officers the inscription names, and assigned it to a king of Hariphunchai. He withdrew the objection in a footnote added while his article was in press, and in 1968 stated a preference for Lopburi.[9]: 12–13, 19 

Inscriptions and dated objects

[edit]

A Dvaravati-period inscription from Lopburi, K. 577, names an adhipati Ārjava, chief of the Taṅgura people, as the son of the īśvara of Śāmbuka.[10]: 412  Inscribed silver medallions reading śrī-dvāravatī-īśvara-puṇya are also recorded from this province, and from Nakhon Pathom, Ratchaburi, Suphan Buri, Sing Buri and Chai Nat. Most are chance finds of unknown provenance, many are in private collections, and forgeries have lately been noticed.[10]: 402  The town also closes the eastern of two rows of ancient settlements that Phōngsi Wanasin and Thiwa Supcanya found above the 3.5-metre contour of the plain, running from Chainat through Inburi, Singburi and Phromburi.[9]: 7 

A small fragment of an inscribed stone wheel of the law from Wat Phra Si Ratana Mahathat, now in the Somdet Phra Narai National Museum, has been published as a Lopburi object since Jean Boisselier described it in 1961. Eng Jin Ooi and Peter Skilling suspect instead that it belongs to the wheel found at Chai Nat in 1988 and was moved to Lopburi at an unknown date. They rest the suggestion on the shared felloe width of 19 centimetres, the near-identical floral design, the palaeography and the textual tradition, and on the absence of any recorded archaeological context or other wheel remains at Lopburi.[11]: 120  Robert Brown and both editions of the Fine Arts Department's Inscriptions in Thailand treat it as a Lopburi find.[11]: 122 

Two octagonal pillars from Sap Champa carry Pali inscriptions. The first, also in the Somdet Phra Narai National Museum, gives a verse on the knowledge of the four realities as the second of its four texts.[11]: 122  The second has the form pavva[jitena], one of the early Pali spellings with a doubled v that also occur on the Phra Pathom Chedi wheel.[11]: 128  A further account of an inscribed pillar from Sap Champa, held in the same museum, gives its text as excerpts of the Buddha's first sermon in Pali and its inventory number as LB 8. Richard Salomon and Nicolas Revire date it to the seventh or eighth century by its script, and note that the Fine Arts Department first published the inscription as Sanskrit. A floral mark dividing the text matches one on a shell-script pillar from Si Thep.[12]: 367 

A dated object survives from the early 13th century. Seven lines of Khmer cut on the back of a headless stone Buddha at Lopburi record its making in 1213 by one Candasvāratana, in the posture beneath the Nāga's hood, together with the planting of a pipal tree. Its reckoning of time is wholly Khmer, with no trace of the Tai system used six years later in the Phrae valley. Reviewing the sixteen dated inscriptions of 1168 to 1219, David K. Wyatt found no indication of Angkorian political or administrative power in those from Lopburi and Grahi, while Pracinburi and the Khorat Plateau remained within it; he added that the absence is not conclusive.[9]: 50–51 

Glass beads from the province have been analysed for their composition. Saritpong Khunsong reports a sample of 186 beads from ten Dvaravati sites of the central plain, two of which are in Lopburi.[13]: 2535–2536  The monument of Wat Pun, in Mueang Lopburi, yielded one of the five beads of Chinese lead glass in the sample. Phromthin Tai yielded potash glass and Middle Eastern plant-ash soda-lime glass.[13]: 2536, 2538  A gold-glass bead is reported from Phromthin Tai on Thanik Lertcharnrit and Alison Carter's account, together with a gold-imitation bead of a type made at Siraf, at Berenike in Egypt and at Thung Tuek in Phang-nga. Ban Tha Khae is named among the early find-places of gold-glass beads, with Mantai in Sri Lanka, Oc Eo and Kuala Selinsing.[13]: 2539 

Later history

[edit]

Lopburi was also remembered as a place of study. The Mūlasāsanā names it with Ayojjhapura as a centre of learning in the early 14th century. The Annals of the North have Ngam Mueang and Ram Khamhaeng studying the arts there under one teacher in 1254, neither of them for ordination.[9]: 55  The name Cāmbūka, which Cœdès connected with the city of Śambhūkapaṭṭana in the Preah Khan inscription of 1191, occurs on a Dvaravati-style Buddha recovered at Lopburi. On that evidence he placed the city no more precisely than in the Menam valley.[9]: 14  Lavo went on sending its own missions to the Chinese court after 1289. Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit count four between 1289 and 1299, beside one from Phetchaburi in 1294.[14]: 51 

During the Ayutthaya period, King Ramathibodi I sent Phra Ramesuan (later King Ramesuan) as the Uparaja to reign in Lopburi. In 1666 King Narai the Great ordered a new palace built on the east bank of the Lopburi River and made Lopburi the second capital of the country, as Ayutthaya was threatened by the Dutch. After King Narai died, the city was almost abandoned and fell into ruin.

In 1856 King Mongkut of the Chakri dynasty ordered King Narai's palace to be renovated. In 1937 Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram chose Lopburi for the largest military base in Thailand, and it was at one time intended to become the country's new capital after the end of World War II.[15]

Geography

[edit]

Lopburi is on the east side of the Chao Phraya River valley, between the Lopburi River and Pa Sak Rivers. Thirty percent of the area of the province, including most of Tha Wung district, the southwestern parts of Mueang Lopburi and Ban Mi districts are a very low alluvial plain. The other 70 percent is mixed plains and hills, with the Phetchabun Mountains forming the eastern boundary of the province towards the Khorat Plateau. The total forest area is 962 km2 (371 sq mi) or 14.8 percent of provincial area.[16]

Wildlife sanctuary

[edit]

There is one wildlife sanctuary in region 1 (Saraburi branch) of Thailand's protected areas.

Climate

[edit]

Lopburi province has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen climate classification category Aw). Winters are dry and warm. Temperatures rise until May. Monsoon season runs from May through October, with heavy rain and somewhat cooler temperatures during the day, although nights remain warm. The maximum temperature is 41.4 °C (106.5 °F) in April and the lowest temperature is 10.2 °C (50.4 °F) in December. The highest average temperature is 36.8 °C (98.2 °F) and the minimum average temperature is 20.6 °C (69.1 °F). Annual average rainfall is 1,125 millimetres. The mean number of rainy days in September is 17.6. Maximum daily rainfall is 203.4 millimetres in October.[18]

Symbols

[edit]
Original seal of Lopburi province (1940-2026).

The provincial seal shows Vishnu in front of the Khmer temple Phra Prang Sam Yod,[19] designed in the 1940s. In 2026, Thai Government designed a new provincial seal by replacing an image of the god Vishnu with a graphic of the Monument of King Narai which is situated in Lopburi city.[20]

The escutcheon of Lopburi shows Vishnu and in the background Phra Prang Sam Yod, the "Sanctuary with the Three Towers". It refers to King Narai who in 1664 fortified the city to be used as an alternative capital when Ayutthaya was threatened by a Dutch naval blockade.[21]

The provincial tree as well as the provincial flower is the bullet wood.[22] The provincial aquatic life is the Java barb (Barbonymus gonionotus).

The slogan of the province is King Narai's Palace, The pride of the land; San Phra Kan Shrine, the Guardian of the City; Phra Prang Sam Yot, renowned through time; the land of Dinso Phong; Pa Sak Jolasid Dam, a resounding landmark; the golden realm of King Narai.

Administrative divisions

[edit]
Map of Lopburi with 11 districts

Provincial government

[edit]

The province is subdivided into 11 districts (amphoe). The districts are further subdivided into 122 sub-districts (tambon) and 1,126 villages (muban).

  1. Mueang Lopburi
  2. Phatthana Nikhom
  3. Khok Samrong
  4. Chai Badan
  5. Tha Wung
  6. Ban Mi
  1. Tha Luang
  2. Sa Bot
  3. Khok Charoen
  4. Lam Sonthi
  5. Nong Muang

Local government

[edit]

As of 26 November 2019 there are:[23] one Lopburi Provincial Administrative Organization (ongkan borihan suan changwat) and 23 municipal (thesaban) areas in the province. Lopburi, Khao Sam Yot and Ban Mi have town (thesaban mueang) status. Further 20 subdistrict municipalities (thesaban tambon). The non-municipal areas are administered by 102 Subdistrict Administrative Organizations - SAO (ongkan borihan suan tambon).

Transportation

[edit]
Lopburi station
Macaques in Monkey Buffet Festival at Phra Prang Sam Yot
Lopburi City Gate, from old to new city

Rail

[edit]

Lopburi railway station is the provincial main station of the State Railway of Thailand's Northern Line, the end of Bangkok's suburban service.[24]

Lopburi 2 (Tha Wung) railway station opened on 5 December 2025, to serve rapid and express trains on a bypass line on the Northern Line.[25]

Roads

[edit]

The main road through Lopburi is Highway 1 (Phahonyothin Road), which starts in Bangkok, and continues through Lopburi, Chai Nat, Nakhon Sawan, Kamphaeng Phet, Tak, Lampang, Chiang Rai, and the border with Burma at Mae Sai. Highway 311 leads west to Sing Buri, and Highway 3196 leads south-west to Ang Thong.[citation needed]

Air

[edit]

Khok Kathiam Air Force Base is 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) north of the town. It has no commercial flights.[citation needed]

Health

[edit]

Lopburi's main hospital is King Narai Hospital, operated by the Ministry of Public Health.

Education

[edit]

Attractions

[edit]

Events and festivals

[edit]
  • King Narai Reign Fair (งานแผ่นดินสมเด็จพระนารายณ์): Event held annually, it is considered the greatest fair of the province. The objective is to honour King Narai the Great, who used to live here. The highlight is that all Lopburi people are dressed in traditional Thai clothes throughout the province and there is a sound and light performance at the King Narai's Palace in the evening. This fair is promoted by Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).[26][27]
  • Monkey Buffet Festival (เทศกาลโต๊ะจีนลิง): an annual buffet held in November for the macaques that live at the Khmer temple Phra Prang Sam Yot and the nearby Phra Kan Shrine in the centre of the province, where they have become an emblem of Lopburi. It was first held in 1989.[28]
  • Climbing Up Khao Wong Phra Chan Festival (ประเพณีขึ้นเขาวงพระจันทร์): a pilgrimage up the 3,790 steps of Khao Wong Phra Chan (crescent moon hill), the province's highest hill, in Khok Samrong district, to pay homage to a replica of the Buddha's footprint and to the Buddha images enshrined on the summit. It is usually held around Chinese New Year and is popular with Thai people of Chinese descent.[29]

Human achievement index 2022

[edit]
Health Education Employment Income
25 16 23 45
Housing Family Transport Participation
47 40 51 50
Province Lopburi, with an HAI 2022 value of 0.65297 is "somewhat high", occupies place 23 in the ranking.

Since 2003, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Thailand has tracked progress on human development at sub-national level using the Human achievement index (HAI), a composite index covering all the eight key areas of human development. National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) has taken over this task since 2017.[3]

RankClassification
  1 - 13"high"
14 - 29"somewhat high"
30 - 45"average"
46 - 61"somewhat low"
62 - 77"low"
Map with provinces and HAI 2022 rankings

Notes

[edit]
  1. ↑ Where the Lavo kingdom's span begins is not settled. The History section below describes it as a kingdom of the Dvaravati period of the 6th to 11th centuries.
  2. ↑ How far Angkorian authority reached over Lopburi, and for how long, is disputed; see the History section.

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ "Table 2 Forest area Separate province year 2019". Royal Forest Department. Retrieved 6 April 2021.
  2. ↑ "Official statistics registration systems". Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA). Retrieved 10 February 2025. , year 2024, provincial level, Excel File, no.16
  3. 1 2 "ข้อมูลสถิติดัชนีความก้าวหน้าของคน ปี 2565 (PDF)" [Human Achievement Index Databook year 2022 (PDF)]. Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) (in Thai). Retrieved 12 March 2024. , page 65
  4. ↑ "Gross Regional and Provincial Product, 2019 Edition". Gross Regional and Provincial Product. Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC). July 2019. ISSN 1686-0799. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  5. ↑ ประกาศราชบัณฑิตยสถาน เรื่อง การเขียนชื่อจังหวัด เขต อำเภอ และกิ่งอำเภอ (PDF). Royal Gazette (in Thai). 117 (พิเศษ 94 ง): 2. 14 September 2000. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 January 2012.
  6. ↑ "Lopburi". Tourist Authority of Thailand (TAT). Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 Murphy, Stephen A. (October 2016). "The case for proto-Dvāravatī: A review of the art historical and archaeological evidence". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 47 (3): 366–392. doi:10.1017/S0022463416000242. ISSN 0022-4634.
  8. ↑ Cœdès, George (1968). The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (PDF). University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-0368-1.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 David K. Wyatt (2001). "Relics, Oaths and Politics in Thirteenth-Century Siam" (PDF). Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 32 (1): 3–65. JSTOR 20072298. Archived from the original on 26 January 2026. Retrieved 10 September 2025.
  10. 1 2 Revire, Nicolas (2016). "Dvāravatī and Zhenla in the seventh to eighth centuries: A transregional ritual complex". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 47 (3): 393–417. doi:10.1017/S0022463416000254.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Ooi, Eng Jin; Skilling, Peter (2026). "The Dhamma wheel from Chainat, Thailand: an epigraphic excerpt from the Pali Dhammacakkappavattana, and related finds". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 89 (1): 105–142. doi:10.1017/S0041977X25100839. Retrieved 1 September 2026.
  12. ↑ Salomon, Richard; Revire, Nicolas (2023). "A Unique Śaṅkhalipi (Shell-script) Inscription from Si Thep, Thailand". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 76 (3): 355–371. doi:10.1556/062.2023.00338. ISSN 0001-6446.
  13. 1 2 3 Saritpong Khunsong (2015). "การค้าขายทางทะเลระหว่างเมืองโบราณสมัยทวารวดีกับประเทศจีนและภูมิภาคตะวันออกกลาง" [Maritime Trade with China and Middle East Region in Dvaravati period]. Veridian E-Journal, Silpakorn University (in Thai). 8 (2): 2526–2545. ISSN 1906-3431.
  14. ↑ Chris Baker; Pasuk Phongpaichit (2017). "Ayutthaya Rising". A History of Ayutthaya: Siam in the Early Modern World. Cambridge University Press. pp. 43–84. ISBN 978-1-108-12019-7.
  15. ↑ "ย้ายเมืองหลวง?". 21 November 2011.
  16. ↑ "ตารางที่ 2 พี้นที่ป่าไม้ แยกรายจังหวัด พ.ศ.2562" [Table 2 Forest area Separate province year 2019]. Royal Forest Department (in Thai). 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2021, information, Forest statistics Year 2019{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  17. ↑ "ตาราง 5 พื้นที่เขตรักษาพันธุ์สัตว์ป่า พ.ศ. 2562" [Table 5 Wildlife Sanctuary Areas in 2019] (PDF). Department of National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries and Plant Conservation (in Thai). 2019. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  18. ↑ "Climatological Data for the Period 1981-2010". Thai Meteorological Department. p. 15. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
  19. ↑ "Phra Prang Sam Yot". Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  20. ↑ Determination of the Official Emblem Image of Lop Buri Province, Ministry of Interior
  21. ↑ "Provincial Escutcheon". THAILEX Travel Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  22. ↑ "Lopburi province (จังหวัดลพบุรี)". Lopburi province. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  23. ↑ "Number of local government organizations by province". dla.go.th. Department of Local Administration (DLA). 26 November 2019. Retrieved 10 December 2019. , 51 Lopburi, 1 PAO, 3 Town mun., 20 Subdistrict mun., 102 SAO.
  24. ↑ Parichatsakul, Pakawat (18 November 2024). "#ก่อนจะย้ายหัวลำโพงนะ" [#Before moving Hua Lamphong]. Facebook (in Thai). Retrieved 28 November 2021.
  25. ↑ "เปิดแล้ว!สถานีรถไฟใหม่"ลพบุรี 2" วิ่งทางคู่ ถึงนครสวรรค์ ทะลวงคอขวดสายเหนือ -"คมนาคม"ดัน เฟส 2 สายใต้ เข้าครม.ธ.ค.นี้".
  26. ↑ Barrow, Richard. "King Narai Reign Fair: 14th-23rd February 2020". Thaifestivalblogs.com. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  27. ↑ "เช้านี้วิถีไทย : นุ่งโจง ห่มสไบ แต่งไทย ไปเที่ยวงาน แผ่นดินสมเด็จพระนารายณ์มหาราช จ.ลพบุรี" [Chao Ni Thi Mo Chit : Dressed in Thai costumes, traveling to King Narai Reign Fair Lopburi Province]. Ch7 (in Thai). 21 February 2020. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  28. ↑ Barrow, Richard. "Lopburi Monkey Party: 29th November 2020". Thaifestivalblogs.com. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  29. ↑ Svasit, Pichaya (14 February 2019). "Buddhist Festival". Bangkok Post. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
[edit]

14°48′2″N 100°39′5″E / 14.80056°N 100.65139°E / 14.80056; 100.65139

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