Chai Nat province

Chai Nat
ชัยนาท
Province
Wat Pak Khlong Makham Thao
Wat Pak Khlong Makham Thao
Flag of Chai Nat
Flag
Official seal of Chai Nat
Seal
Mottoes: 
หลวงปู่ศุขลือชา เขื่อนเจ้าพระยาลือชื่อ นามระบือสวนนก ส้มโอดกขาวแตงกวา
("Revered Luang Pu Suk. Renowned Chao Phraya Dam. Famous Bird Park. Rich in pomelos and white cucumbers.")
Map of Thailand highlighting Chai Nat province
Map of Thailand highlighting Chai Nat province
CountryThailand
CapitalChai Nat
Government
 • TypeProvince and Provincial Administrative Organization
 • BodyChai Nat Province and Chai Nat Provincial Administrative Organization
 • GovernorPhumivach Udomsap
 • PAO Chief ExecutiveJitthana Yingthaweelapa
Area
 • Total
2,506 km2 (968 sq mi)
 • Rank65th
Population
 (2024)
 • Total
Decrease313,759
 • Rank69th
 • Density131/km2 (340/sq mi)
  • Rank33rd
Human Achievement Index
 • HAI (2022)0.6124 "low"
Ranked 73rd
GDP
 • Totalbaht 32 billion
(US$1.1 billion) (2019)
Time zoneUTC+7 (ICT)
Postal code
17xxx
Calling code056
ISO 3166 codeTH-18
Websitechainat.go.th
chainatpao.go.th

Chai Nat (Thai: ชัยนาท, pronounced [tɕʰāj nâːt]) is one of the central provinces (changwat) of Thailand. Neighbouring provinces are (from north clockwise) Nakhon Sawan, Sing Buri, Suphan Buri, and Uthai Thani. The town of Chai Nat is 188 km north of Bangkok.

Geography

Chai Nat is on the flat river plain of central Thailand's Chao Phraya River valley. In the south of the province the Chao Phraya Dam (formerly Chai Nat Dam) impounds the river, for flood control and to divert water into the country's largest irrigation system, which serves the rice paddies of the lower valley. The dam, part of the Greater Chao Phraya Project, was finished in 1957 and was the first dam constructed in Thailand. The total forest area is 64 km2 (25 sq mi) or 2.6 percent of the provincial area.

History

The province holds sites much older than the town. At Ban Don Krachon in Hankha a group of metal votive tablets was found in 1982, in a Chinese jar inside a laterite crypt built from the reused stones of an earlier shrine. Walailak Songsiri, surveying the place in December 2024, found it too small to have raised a large sanctuary of its own.: 15  She and Srisakra Vallibhotama [fr] place the seat of the polity the Chinese called Chen Li Fu in the Phraek Si Racha and Dong Khon area of Sankhaburi district, in the south of the province.: 16  Inscribed silver medallions reading śrī-dvāravatī-īśvara-puṇya are recorded from this province, and from Nakhon Pathom, Ratchaburi, Suphan Buri, Lop Buri and Sing Buri. Most are chance finds of unknown provenance, many are in private collections, and forgeries have lately been noticed.: 402 

A broken stone wheel of the law and a fragment of an octagonal pillar were found in 1988 in Manorom district, in the north-east of the province. Both are inscribed in Pāli, and the find spot lies between the moated ancient towns of Muang Nakhon Noi and U-Ta Pao.: 108  The wheel is catalogued CN. 14; its inscription is in Southeast Asian Brāhmī and is dated to the seventh century in the Fine Arts Department's Inscriptions in Thailand.: 110  The pillar, CN. 15, carries the same script and the same date.: 132  Slightly less than half of the wheel survives.: 124  Eng Jin Ooi and Peter Skilling take it as the earliest surviving witness to the Pāli Dhammacakkappavattana as that text circulated in central Siam.: 108 

Dvāravatī material has been recovered around U-Ta Pao, which lies on the edge of the Hang Nam Sakorn waterway. It includes structures, earthenware sherds and numerous silver coins stamped with a conch, or with a rising sun and śrīvatsa symbols. Thirty-two of the coins are in the Bangkok National Museum.: 109  The finder kept the wheel and the objects found with it in a private museum. In 2018 his sister presented them to Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who passed them to the Fine Arts Department, and they have since been in the Chainatmuni National Museum. Stephen Murphy and Pimchanok Pongkasetkan place the upper part of the province in the Upper Chao Phraya basin, a group of Dvāravatī sites that also takes in Nakhon Sawan, Kamphaeng Phet, Phichit and Phitsanulok.: 110 

A survey by Phōngsi Wanasin and Thiwa Supcanya found the ancient settlements of the plain arranged in two rows above the 3.5-metre contour, the eastern running from Chainat through Inburi, Singburi and Phromburi to Lopburi. David K. Wyatt, who reports the survey, reads the rows as the fringes of a plain then largely under water. He uses Chainat and Phraek Si Racha as names for the same place on his map of the period. He records that a ruler of Phetburi, in a year he reads as 1204, sent troops and colonists north to it.: 7, 20 : 16 

According to the Ayutthaya Testimonies, the provincial centre of Chai Nat was founded by the Siamese monarch Surindrarāja in the early 11th century. He renamed Ban Pran Nuea (บ้านพรานเนื้อ) as Phra Nakhon Chai Nat Buri (พระนครชัยนาทบุรี) and designated it as the new capital of the region, thereby superseding Phraek Si Racha as the principal administrative centre of the polity.: 41 

Chai Nat was first established during the Ayutthaya period and used as a base against Burmese armies. The name Chai Nat, 'place of victory', is explained by a tradition that the Burmese were defeated there each time.

After World War II and the Japanese withdrawal, economic conditions were poor and food was short. Chai Nat was affected badly, with bandits gathering in the countryside to steal cattle and commit violence.

Symbols

The provincial seal shows a dhammachakka with a mountain in the background. It refers to the Dhammachak Buddha image housed in the hall of Wat Dhammamoen, built on the slope of a mountain.

The provincial tree is the bael fruit tree (Aegle marmelos), and the provincial flower is the Rainbow Shower tree (Cassia javanica). Bleeker's sheatfish (Phalacronotus bleekeri) is the provincial fish.

The slogan of the province is "Venerable Luang Pu Suk, renowned Chao Phraya Dam, famous bird park and tasty khao taengkwa pomelo."

Administrative divisions

Provincial government

Map of Chai Nat with 8 districts

Chai Nat is divided into eight districts (amphoes). The districts are further subdivided into 53 sub-districts (tambons) and 503 villages (mubans).

  1. Mueang Chai Nat
  2. Manorom
  3. Wat Sing
  4. Sapphaya
  1. Sankhaburi
  2. Hankha
  3. Nong Mamong
  4. Noen Kham

Local government

As of 26 November 2019 there are: one Chai Nat Provincial Administrative Organization - PAO (ongkan borihan suan changwat) and 39 municipal (thesaban) areas in the province. Chai Nat has town (thesaban mueang) status. Further 38 subdistrict municipalities (thesaban tambon). The non-municipal areas are administered by 20 Subdistrict Administrative Organizations - SAO (ongkan borihan suan tambon).

Places

Ridge of Chao Phraya Dam

Other places in the province include:

Notable people

Born in Chai Nat

Human achievement index 2022

Health Education Employment Income
68 24 72 67
Housing Family Transport Participation
46 63 60 19
Province Chai Nat, with an HAI 2022 value of 0.6124 is "low", occupies place 73 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.

RankClassification
  1–13"High"
14–29"Somewhat high"
30–45"Average"
46–61"Somewhat low"
62–77"Low"

References

  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.18
  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 23
  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. 1 2 "About Chainat". Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). Archived from the original on 22 April 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  6. ↑ "Distance: Bangkok to Chai Nat". Google Maps. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  7. ↑ "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
  8. 1 2 3 Walailak Songsiri (2025). "ในดินแดนแห่งเจนลีฟู นครรัฐที่ไม่ได้อยู่ในอำนาจทางการเมืองของพระเจ้าชัยวรมันที่ ๗ สู่ปัญหาทางประวัติศาสตร์ที่หาทางออกไม่เจอของสังคมไทย" [In the land of Chen Li Fu, a city-state outside the political power of Jayavarman VII, and the historical problem Thai society has not resolved]. Lek-Prapai Viriyaphan Foundation (in Thai). Retrieved 14 July 2025.
  9. ↑ 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.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 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.
  11. ↑ 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.
  12. ↑ Phraya Pariyattithamthada (1968). Ayutthaya Testimonies (PDF) (in Thai). Rung Rueang Tham. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 April 2023. Retrieved 12 December 2024.
  13. ↑ Reynolds, Craig J. (2019-10-22). Power, Protection and Magic in Thailand: The Cosmos of a Southern Policeman. ANU Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-76046-317-5.
  14. ↑ "Chainat". THAILEX Travel Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 29 May 2015. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
  15. ↑ "Number of local government organizations by province". dla.go.th. Department of Local Administration (DLA). 26 November 2019. Retrieved 10 December 2019. , 9 Chai Nat, 1 PAO, 1 Town mun., 38 Subdistrict mun., 20 SAO.

15°11′06″N 100°07′29″E / 15.18500°N 100.12472°E / 15.18500; 100.12472