History
Uttaradit means the "port of the north" or "northern landing", as it was formerly a trade center on the Nan River. Large boats could ascend the Nan only as far as Bang Pho, where the town now stands, rapids beginning above it, so cargo changed between river and overland carriage here. The beach market at Tha It, a little upstream, drew traders from Phrae, Nan, Luang Prabang and Sipsong Panna, and closed only when the northern railway reached the province.: 31–32
A Dong Son bronze drum and bronze vessels were dug up in the reign of Rama VII at the low hill by Wat Kasem Chittaram at Khlong Pho, in tambon Tha Sao of Mueang Uttaradit district. They are held at the Bangkok National Museum, whose register gave the find-spot instead as Wiang Chao Ngo in tambon Thung Yang, Laplae district. Withaya Inthakosai, then an archaeologist of the Fine Arts Department, found that record to be wrong. Phiset Jiajanphong confirmed the Khlong Pho find-spot from residents of Ban Thung Yang who remembered the pieces being shown at the Wat Phra Thaen Sila At fair after the discovery. Wiang Chao Ngo was being looted at the time, which Phiset took to be the source of the confusion.: 60–61
Surface finds at Khlong Pho include grey-black stoneware of Lopburi type, Sukhothai celadon and Chinese celadon of the 12th and early 13th centuries, with an earth rampart cored in laterite and a moat at the creek mouth. Phiset read Khlong Pho and Thung Yang as one unit, Thung Yang the centre and Khlong Pho its landing on the Nan. He noted that the material was collected from the surface or seen in private hands rather than excavated.: 62–63, 66
In the Sukhothai era several city states (Mueang) subject to the king were in the area of the modern province. Mueang Fang, an old town whose relic shrine was venerated at least from the Sukhothai period, lay on the east bank of the Nan in modern-day Mueang Uttaradit district, and Mueang Thung Yang in Laplae.: 24, 35, 44 Chusak Satienpattanodom treats Thung Yang as a frontier town of Si Satchanalai guarding the Khao Phlueng pass, with Mueang Phichai holding the same position further down the Nan. Wiang Chao Ngo itself is thought to be older than the Sukhothai period.: 85 : 78 Mueang Ta Chuchok lay further down the Nan in Tron district, beside the kiln field of Ban Tao Hai, and it is by that town that the kiln site is identified.: 55–56
Mueang Rat, the seat of Pha Mueang, has also been sought in the province. Griswold and Prasert na Nagara argued from the terrain for the Nan valley about 50 km upstream from Uttaradit, a reading David K. Wyatt follows while stating that the town has never been found.: 9, 51 Prasert placed it at Tha Pla, on a reading of Inscription 8 that takes its list of towns in clockwise order. Phiset Jiajanphong argued for Thung Yang in Laplae, and held that the two do not compete, Thung Yang and Uttaradit lying on one stretch of plain.: 27, 43 The Nan was also a route of settlement. Wyatt traces the founders of the towns of the upper valley, and the ancestry of the rulers of late-13th-century Sukhothai, to families who came down the river from the U River valley. They moved into country already held by Mōn and Khmer speakers.: 37–39 Other proposals place it in the Pasak valley, at Lom Sak or Lom Kao in Phetchabun province, and at the old Khorat site in Sung Noen district.
Kilns in the province worked in the shadow of the Si Satchanalai industry. Chusak Satienpattanodom lists Ban Kaeng and Ban Tao Hai in Tron district among the groups that copied Sangkhalok wares, all of them later and of lower quality than the originals.: 55 He also argues that the kiln town called Ban Tao Hai Chae Liang in the Phuen Mueang Nan cannot be the Si Satchanalai kiln field, because the journey the chronicle describes is too short. He identifies it with the Tron kilns beside Mueang Ta Chuchok instead.: 55–56, 91 Sangkhalok itself is found east of the Yom at Mueang Thung Yang, Mueang Fang and Mueang Tron.: 55
During the Ayutthaya kingdom, Mueang Phichai was one of the 16 main Mueang of the Thai kingdom. In the reign of King Naresuan, the ruler of Phichai rebelled, joined by the ruler of the Sawankhalok region. Their revolt was suppressed and the inhabitants of both cities were forced to move south to Phitsanulok.
Following the fall of the city of Ayutthaya to the Burmese in 1767, Phichai was the site of several battles against the invaders. The ruler of Phichai drove the Burmese back and was awarded the title Phraya Phichai Dap Hak, the "Lord of Phichai with a Broken Sword". He had broken one of his swords in hand-to-hand fighting.
Chaipong Samnieng reads the province's monuments as a measure of what that position was worth. He takes the size of Phra That Thung Yang and of Wat Phra Fang, and the ability of the Phra Fang faction to gather men and supplies, as signs of the wealth of a junction trading with Luang Prabang and Lan Na; the faction was the last of the Thonburi risings to be put down, and its workshops cast crowned Buddha images in the Ayutthayan cakravartin manner. He reads the muster at Phichai for the campaigns against the Haw in the later nineteenth century the same way.: 166
In the reign of King Rama III Mueang Phichai controlled several Mueang of northern Siam like Nan or Phrae, and even Luang Prabang and Vientiane. At the point where the Nan river became shallow a port was established. As this town grew in importance as an important trade point, in 1887 it was made a Mueang subordinate of Phichai. 1899 the center of Phichai was moved to this new location, which was renamed to Uttaradit in 1915.
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