Sukhothai Kingdom

Thai tradition remembers Sukhothai as the first Thai kingdom, a state centred on the city of that name in the upper Chao Phraya valley of today's north-central Thailand. According to the usual dating, it broke free of Khmer-dominated Lavo in 1238 under a local chief who became King Si Inthrathit, reached its widest reach under Ram Khamhaeng, and from 1438 was absorbed by its southern rival, Ayutthaya. Historians now stress that Tai peoples had states before it, but its inscriptions, script and art made it central to Thailand's sense of its past.

A Khmer-style town stood at Sukhothai by around 1200, when the region answered to Lavo, itself under the Khmer Empire; some temples from this period still survive. Tai-speaking peoples had been moving south into the region over several centuries, perhaps between the eighth and tenth, and Tai principalities already existed in the northern hills. Tradition holds that in 1238 a chief named Pho Khun Bang Klang Hao, aided by an ally, Pho Khun Pha Mueang, overthrew the Khmer-appointed governor. Taking the name Si Inthrathit, he founded the Phra Ruang dynasty, and by his death in 1270 Sukhothai held the upper Chao Phraya valley.

After a short reign by his elder son Ban Mueang, the throne passed to a younger son, Ram Khamhaeng, who ruled from 1279 to 1298. Later tradition credits him with bringing much of the south under tribute, including Suphan Buri and Nakhon Si Thammarat, along with Phrae and Luang Prabang in the north, and with backing the Mon leader Wareru against the Pagan Kingdom. How far this power truly reached is debated. Missions went to the Yuan dynasty in China, and Sukhothai potters learned to make the glazed sangkhalok stoneware it exported.

Ram Khamhaeng is said to have invited monks from the south and promoted Theravada Buddhism, though such claims are disputed. A script that later grew into modern Thai writing is attributed to him and dated to around 1283. Its best-known example, the Ram Khamhaeng Inscription, was found by the future King Mongkut in the nineteenth century. Hundreds of stone inscriptions from the period record kings, monasteries and religious history.

Vassals peeled away quickly after Ram Khamhaeng's death. Martaban broke free in 1319 and Lan Na took Tak in 1321. In 1349 armies of the Ayutthaya Kingdom forced King Li Thai to accept tributary status. Around this time the centre of power shifted to Song Khwae, later renamed Phitsanulok; some sources date the move to 1347. When Borommapan died in 1438, Ayutthaya installed its own crown prince there, ending Sukhothai's separate existence.

The old Sukhothai nobility remained powerful inside Ayutthaya, and in 1569 one of its members, Maha Thammaracha, became king there under Burmese overlordship, founding the Sukhothai dynasty; his son Naresuan later threw off Burmese rule. From the late nineteenth century Sukhothai became the opening chapter of Thai national history, held up as a time of fatherly kingship. The ruins of the capital are now a World Heritage Site.

Shown on our maps as the Kingdom of Sukhotai, it appears only on the 1100 map, beside the Khmer Empire. That date is earlier than the kingdom itself, which is usually dated from 1238 to 1438, so the 1100 outline should be read as the region that the later kingdom would rule rather than a state that existed then.