Chiang Mai's lanterns: how they are made and what they mean at Yi Peng

During Yi Peng, the northern Thai festival held at a full moon, usually in November, the light that fills Chiang Mai comes from several different objects. Most of it is hanging paper lanterns, strung across temple courtyards and over streets. There are also lanterns carried in procession, a revolving lantern that throws moving shadows, small clay lamps lit along walls and steps, and the sky lanterns that rise on hot air. The krathongs floated on the river for Loy Krathong, which falls on the same full moon, are something else again: offerings set on the water, not lanterns.

This piece explains how to tell them apart, how each is made, why only one kind flies, and what the lights mean in Chiang Mai's Buddhist practice. It does not cover dates, venues or the year's rules: those are in our Yi Peng and Loy Krathong guide.

The lights of Yi Peng, told apart

Thai sources do not all sort lanterns the same way, so treat the names below as the common ones rather than a fixed system. Khom is the Thai word for a lantern, and most of the names simply say what the lantern does: hang, be carried, turn, float.

Of the lanterns, only the sky lantern leaves the ground. It is also the one whose meaning is most debated today.

Hanging lanterns: the ones you see everywhere

The lanterns hung in rows across temple courtyards, over gateways and along streets are khom khwaen, hanging lanterns. They come in many shapes: stars, diamonds, plain cylinders, jars, and the one most associated with Chiang Mai, an eight-sided lantern that narrows to a point at the bottom and trails long tails of cut paper.

That lantern has two names. In northern Thai, the language of Lanna, the old kingdom centred on Chiang Mai, it is khom hang mot som, the weaver-ant nest lantern, after the round nests of folded leaves that weaver ants build in trees. It is also called khom thammachak, the Dhamma-wheel lantern, and some writers read its eight sides as the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism. That is an interpretation, not a rule that every maker follows.

A hanging lantern is, first of all, a shelter for a flame. A small clay lamp sits inside, the paper walls keep the wind off it, and the top is left open to put the lamp in. Many of the lanterns strung over streets today hold a bulb instead, but the shape still reflects that purpose. Several lanterns can also be linked one below another into a hanging chain, called khom aew.

How a hanging lantern is made

The materials are simple, and much of the skill goes into the frame. Makers split bamboo into thin strips, often a slender local bamboo called hia, bend them to shape and tie the joints with thread. The simplest lantern, the cylinder (khom krabok), is no more than two bamboo hoops with paper glued between them. The eight-sided lantern takes far more cutting, bending and tying.

The frame is then covered. The traditional covering is sa paper, a handmade paper made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree; Ban Ton Pao, in San Kamphaeng district east of the city, is the best-known village that makes it. Coloured tissue paper and plain cotton cloth are used as well. None of the Thai sources we used calls it rice paper.

Decoration comes last. Patterns are cut from gold or silver paper and glued on, using northern motifs such as the four-petalled dok ka kok flower and the sun, and the long paper tails are fixed to the base, where they move in the slightest air.

The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, a Thai public research institute, describes Ban Mueang Sat, a community in the Nong Hoi subdistrict, south-east of the old city, as the largest lantern-making community in northern Thailand. It names Bua Lai Khanapanya as the community's best-known maker, known both for keeping old patterns and for designing new shapes. Local press reports that lanterns are made there all year, not only before the festival, and that most of the work is still done by hand.

Lanterns that are carried, and the one that turns

A carried lantern, khom thue, is small enough to hold. The best known is the khom hu kratai, the rabbit-ear lantern: bamboo sticks set into a small square wooden base and splayed at the top, covered in coloured paper, with a candle inside. Chiang Mai's National Museum describes people carrying them in Yi Peng processions and then planting them in the ground around the temple halls.

The revolving lantern, khom phat, is the most ingenious of them. Phat means to turn. Chiang Mai University describes a paper drum about half a metre wide and seventy centimetres tall, covered in sa paper or white kite paper, a thin, light paper. Inside, a lighter frame turns on a central pivot above a candle. Hot air rising from the flame pushes on paper vanes at the top of the inner frame and sets it turning, and the shadows of the figures fixed to it travel round the outer wall.

The figures are cut from black paper. A Chiang Mai News feature on the craft lists scenes from the life of the Buddha, the Vessantara Jataka (the story of the Buddha's last life on earth before the one in which he attained enlightenment), the animals of the zodiac and everyday Buddhist life. Phonthep Boonmuen, recognised in 2018 as a master craftsman by Thailand's arts and crafts promotion institute, SACIT, favours the twelve zodiac animals. SACIT's profile of him notes that a badly balanced frame will not turn at all.

Sky lanterns: why they rise

A sky lantern is a small hot-air balloon. Its paper envelope is closed at the top and open at the bottom, where a light ring of bamboo or wire holds it open, with a pad of wax-soaked paper fixed in the middle of the opening as fuel. The flame heats the air trapped inside. Warm air is less dense than the cooler air around it, so the envelope full of warm air weighs less than the same volume of outside air, and it is pushed upwards. It only works because everything else (paper, ring and fuel) is very light.

Normally it comes down once the fuel is spent and the air inside has cooled, wherever the wind has taken it. A lantern that tears, tips or sinks early can come down still burning, on a roof, a dry field or a power line, and Chiang Mai's airport is close enough to the city for lanterns to drift into flight paths. For sky lanterns, Thailand's community product standard (which covers village-made goods) asks for thin kite paper and a small amount of fuel that burns out quickly. Where and when they may be released is set by the province each year: see our festival guide.

In Thai the sky lantern is khom loy (โคมลอย), the floating lantern, from the same verb, loy, as Loy Krathong. You will also see it written khom loi, which is the official romanisation; we use khom loy, as in our festival guide. Older northern names distinguish two objects. Wao fai, the fire kite, is the night lantern lifted by a flame. Wao hom is a larger smoke balloon, filled with hot smoke and released by day. Usage varies, though: some Lanna sources keep khom loy for the smoke balloon and call the night lantern khom fai. The same word does not always name the same object.

English descriptions often say sky lanterns are made of rice paper. Thai sources, and the community product standard, describe kite paper: a thin, light paper, chosen because the lantern cannot lift much weight.

What the lights mean at Yi Peng

At its core, Yi Peng is a temple festival, and its lights are offerings. Chiang Mai University's material on Lanna tradition describes the older festival as centred on the temple: listening to the great sermon, tang tham luang, which tells the Vessantara story, and lighting lamps and lanterns to make merit. Thailand's Fine Arts Department describes lanterns, which are also lit on other Buddhist holy days, as an offering to the Buddha and as a way of bringing light and good fortune to the household that offers them.

The clay lamps have their own story. A northern text on the merit of lamps, the Anisong Phang Prathip, explains their three-pronged wick, called the crow's foot, with the tale of a mother crow separated from her eggs, which in the story became the five Buddhas of the present cosmic age. The lamps are lit at the temple and around the house, and during the great sermon a lamp is lit for every verse of the chapter being read.

Many temple entrances are also dressed with arches of banana trunks and coconut leaves hung with lanterns. These are pratu pa, forest gates, and they mark Prince Vessantara's return from his exile in the forest.

Releasing sky lanterns rests on a belief of its own. Lanna sources such as Maejo University's archives describe releasing lanterns (the smoke balloon, wao hom, by day and the wao fai at night) as an offering to Phra Ket Kaew Chulamani: the relic of the hair the Buddha cut when he renounced his palace life. Buddhist tradition places it in the Tavatimsa heaven, the heaven of the thirty-three gods. A widely heard explanation today is different: that a lantern carries your bad luck away with it. Thitinadda Chinachan, a researcher on Lanna culture at Chiang Mai University's Social Research Institute, has argued in an interview with Voice TV that this reading is recent and tied to tourism, and that the older practice was a single smoke balloon released at the temple for the whole village. Both explanations are current in Chiang Mai; the older sources describe the first.

Two histories meet in the festival visitors see today. The older one is Yi Peng itself: according to Chiang Mai University, a celebration centred on the temple, on the great sermon and on the lamps and lanterns described above. The other belongs to the twentieth century. The same university dates the arrival in Chiang Mai of Loy Krathong, the central Thai custom of floating krathongs, probably to the late 1910s or the 1920s. It then describes a public festival promoted in the city from the late 1940s, which grew after the national tourism office (today's Tourism Authority of Thailand) opened a branch there in the late 1960s, and notes that as the festival turned towards visitors, the sermon at its heart faded from community life. The ticketed mass releases held outside the city belong to these recent additions, not to the temple tradition.

What Lanna is: the kingdom and the culture behind these traditions

What to look for in Chiang Mai

Most of this needs no ticket and no programme. In the days around the full moon, the temples are where to look, and the details below are what to look for.

The shapes. Pick out the eight-sided lanterns with tails, the stars and the cylinders, and see whether a lantern holds a flame or a bulb.

The low lights. Clay lamps line walls, steps and the bases of chedis, the solid towers that often hold relics.

The gates. Arches of banana trunks and coconut leaves at a temple entrance are the forest gates of the Vessantara story.

A revolving lantern. You will see far fewer revolving lanterns than hanging ones. If a temple or a display has one, stop for a minute and watch the shadows move.

Lanterns for sale. Hanging lanterns are sold all year, and Ban Mueang Sat is described as the largest lantern-making community. Seeing sky lanterns on sale does not mean you may release one where you stand.

Before you walk into a temple: dress and behaviour

Before you go to the festival

This article is about the objects and what they mean. For the 2026 dates, what happens where in the city, which events need a ticket, and the current rules on sky lanterns and flights, use our Yi Peng and Loy Krathong guide. The rules on sky lanterns are set again each year, so check them close to your trip.

Yi Peng and Loy Krathong in Chiang Mai, 2026: dates and planning

Read nextYi Peng and Loy Krathong in Chiang Mai, 2026 ▸

Read nextWhat Is Lanna? The Kingdom, Culture and Identity Behind Chiang Mai ▸

Sources and verification · October 2026

This article draws on the publications below, mostly in Thai. Thai sources do not sort lanterns in a single way, and where they differ we say so. We give no date of origin for the lantern customs: the sources do not establish one.

• Lantern types, frames and papers: Chiang Mai University Library, Lanna traditions: making Yi Peng lanterns (การทำโคมยี่เป็ง)
• Night and daytime sky lanterns (wao fai, wao hom): Chiang Mai University Library, Lanna traditions: making a fire kite (การทำว่าวไฟ หรือโคมไฟ)
• Forest gates and the Vessantara story: Chiang Mai University Library, Lanna traditions: making a forest gate (การทำซุ้มประตูป่า)
• The revolving lantern: Chiang Mai University, Office of Arts and Culture: khom phat, an old Yi Peng lantern (โคมผัด โคมยี่เป็งโบราณ)
• Revolving lantern figures: Chiang Mai News, feature on the khom phat (100 Lanna stories)
• Revolving lantern maker: SACIT Archive, profile of master craftsman Phonthep Boonmuen
• Clay lamps and the crow's-foot wick: Chiang Mai University, Office of Arts and Culture: clay lamps and their stories in Lanna (ผางประทีปและเรื่องเล่าในล้านนา)
• Materials and meaning of Lanna lanterns: Fine Arts Department, Ratchamangkhalaphisek National Library, Chiang Mai: Lanna lanterns
• Carried lanterns in procession: Fine Arts Department, Chiang Mai National Museum: Yi Peng lanterns (โคมยี่เป็ง)
• The eight-sided lantern and khom aew: Thai PBS, on the khom hang mot som (2025)
• Ban Mueang Sat, lantern-making community: Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, community wiki: Ban Mueang Sat
• Ban Mueang Sat: year-round, hand-made production: MGR Online, on the lantern makers of Ban Mueang Sat (Mueang Sat Luang) before Yi Peng (2018)
• Sa paper and Ban Ton Pao: Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, community wiki: Ban Ton Pao
• Why a sky lantern rises: Chiang Mai University Science and Technology Park (STeP): how a khom loy floats
• Sky lanterns and Phra Ket Kaew Chulamani: Maejo University archives: releasing lanterns to honour Phra Ket Kaew Chulamani
• Older practice and the bad-luck reading: Voice TV, interview with Thitinadda Chinachan, Social Research Institute, Chiang Mai University
• Sky lantern standard: Ministry of Industry, notice on standard sky lanterns (community product standard)
• Krathongs and the festival in Chiang Mai: Chiang Mai University, Office of Arts and Culture: Loy Krathong (ลอยกระทง)