Lanna Kingdom

Lanna, also written Lan Na, was a Tai kingdom in what is now northern Thailand, founded by King Mangrai in the late thirteenth century with its capital at Chiang Mai. Its name is usually rendered "a million rice fields". At its height in the fifteenth century it fought Ayutthaya on equal terms; from 1558 it spent most of two centuries under Burmese overlordship, and from 1775–1776 it passed to Siam, which absorbed it entirely by the early twentieth century.

Mangrai was the ruler of Ngoenyang, a small state centred on modern Chiang Saen, whose mother came from the Sipsongpanna region of Yunnan. He united the towns of Ngoenyang, founded Chiang Rai in 1262 and named it after himself, then turned south and conquered the old Mon kingdom of Hariphunchai at Lamphun in the early 1280s. After a spell at Wiang Kum Kam he founded Chiang Mai in 1296 as his capital. Chinese records of the Yuan period call the kingdom "Eight Hundred Wives" from 1292.

Mangrai died around 1311, and his successors quarrelled over the throne, while the capital moved for a time before King Phayu returned it to Chiang Mai and built Wat Phra Singh. Under Kue Na, the Lankawongse school of Theravada Buddhism was promoted with monks invited from Sukhothai, and a stupa was raised on Doi Suthep in 1386. The first armed clash with Ayutthaya came when a rebel prince sought its help, and Lanna also faced invasions from the new Ming dynasty.

Lanna was strongest under Tilokaraj, who seized the throne from his father in 1441 and reigned until 1487. He beat off an Ayutthayan intervention in 1442, conquered Phayao in 1456 and fought a long war with Ayutthaya over the old Sukhothai lands, holding the town of Chaliang until 1474 before seeking peace in 1475. In 1477 a Buddhist council near Chiang Mai recompiled the scriptures, and the king built and restored many temples and extended his power west into the Shan states.

After Tilokaraj, disputes among princes weakened the kingdom. King Kaew attacked Ayutthaya in 1507 and was invaded in return, and a defeat in Kengtung in 1523 ended Lanna's dominance in the Shan lands. A series of murders and depositions followed; Queen Chiraprapha was forced to accept Ayutthayan overlordship, and the throne passed briefly to a Lao prince, Setthathirath of Lan Xang, who took the Emerald Buddha with him to Luang Prabang. In 1558 the Shan-born king Mekuti surrendered to Bayinnaung of Toungoo Burma. Burma allowed considerable local autonomy but controlled taxes and labour service. After a short-lived Siamese overlordship around 1600, Burmese rule returned by 1614 and vassal kings of Burmese descent governed for over a century. A revolt in 1727 won Chiang Mai a spell of independence, ended by the new Burmese dynasty in 1757.

Chiang Mai was a collecting point for forest goods such as deer skins, ivory, teak, beeswax and lac, which hill peoples owed to the crown. Caravans linked it with Yunnan and the Shan states to the north and with Ayutthaya and the Burmese ports of Moulmein and Martaban to the south. The English merchant Ralph Fitch arrived in Chiang Mai in 1586 and met Yunnanese traders there bringing gold, silver and civet.

Harsh Burmese governors provoked a revolt, and on 15 January 1775 the Lampang chief Kawila, with Siamese help, took Chiang Mai. Burmese attempts to return failed, and Lanna became a group of five principalities under Siam: Chiang Mai, Nan, Lampang, Lamphun and Phrae. From 1874 Siam drew them under direct rule, and by 1909 Lanna no longer existed as a polity in its own right. Its language survives as Kham Mueang, and since the 1980s and 1990s a "Lanna Renaissance" has revived its script, architecture and dress, though critics argue that much of the modern style is a recent reconstruction.

Our maps for 1600, 1650, 1700 and 1715 label the kingdom "Lan Na", in the period of Burmese overlordship; on our 1783 map the region appears within the Rattanakosin Kingdom of Siam.