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The great brick chedi of Wat Chedi Luang just after sunset, its broken top against a blue sky with the moon, white paper lanterns lit along the fence

Old city, Chiang Mai

Wat Chedi Luang six centuries in brick

Begun around 1391, enlarged around 1480, broken by an earthquake in 1545. Here is how to read what is left.

Wat Chedi Luang is built around a single monument: a brick chedi, a relic tower, begun at the heart of the old city at the end of the fourteenth century, enlarged from 1478 or 1479 to perhaps eighty metres, and broken by an earthquake in 1545.

It has stood broken ever since, and that is what makes it legible. Most of its mass dates from the fifteenth century, its break from 1545, its repairs from 1990–1992. This page shows you how to tell them apart, then walks you round the rest of the temple.

Our take: Go for the chedi itself, and give it most of your time: walk round it once in daylight, about forty minutes before sunset, then stay for the lights. Allow an hour.

Best for
Anyone who wants to understand what they are looking at; a natural second temple after Wat Phra Singh, ten minutes away.
Skip if
You are mainly after old murals and richly decorated interiors: Wat Phra Singh does those better.

Built, enlarged, broken, consolidated

Four moments made the chedi you see. Three of them can still be read in the brick.

A chedi to make merit for a father

The chronicles credit the chedi to King Saen Mueang Ma, who ruled Chiang Mai from 1385 to 1402. He had it begun to make merit for his late father, King Ku Na: a pious work whose benefit, in Buddhist belief, passes to the dead. Tradition puts the start in 1391; the exact year is not documented.1

He did not see it finished. His widow completed it while their son, Sam Fang Kaen, was on the throne.1

Tilokarat's great rebuilding

The size you feel when you stand at the fence comes from a second campaign. From 1478 or 1479, under King Tilokarat, ruler of Lanna, the northern kingdom whose capital was Chiang Mai, the minister Muen Dam Phra Khot took up the old chedi and enlarged it, and elephants were added along the terrace.1,2

The chronicles give its new dimensions in sok, the cubit of the time: 92 sok high on a base 52 sok wide. Nobody knows exactly how long a sok was here, so the figure every guide repeats, about eighty metres, is a modern estimate rather than a measurement.1,3

In 1481, the chronicle says, the image Thailand now venerates above all others was set in the east niche of the enlarged chedi: the Emerald Buddha, a small figure of green stone that had been in Chiang Mai since 1468. A jade image sits in that niche today; the plaque beneath it calls it Phra Kaeo Yok Chiang Mai, the jade Phra Kaeo of Chiang Mai, Phra Kaeo being the Thai name for the Emerald Buddha.2,4

The earthquake of 1545

In 1545, in the reign of Queen Chiraprapha, an earthquake brought down the summit. The chronicle records the day in its own calendar and notes that the chedi of Wat Phra Singh lost its top as well.1,2

An archaeoseismic study published in 2011 concluded that the chedi lost about half its height, and that it fell towards the south.3 Six or seven years later the Emerald Buddha left Chiang Mai for good, taken to Luang Prabang by King Setthathirat of Lan Xang, the Lao kingdom; it is now in Bangkok.5,6

A restoration that left the summit alone

For more than four centuries the chedi stood broken in the middle of the city. Between June 1990 and December 1992 the Fine Arts Department, Thailand's state heritage agency, had it consolidated by a contractor, for 35 million baht. The base was strengthened and widened, from about 56 to 60 metres a side, and missing parts were remade where traces of them survived, the elephants among them.6

It was not completed. Nobody has a drawing of the lost summit, and a 2013 thesis still treats its form as an open question.7 The work was sharply criticised all the same, and the very idea of completing the chedi remains contested in Thailand.6,8 What you see today: a fifteenth-century mass, a fresh skin in places, and open sky where the summit was.

The whole chedi floodlit at dusk, with a group of visitors walking across the forecourt in front of it and others standing at the foot of its east stairway
The east face at 18:10 on 22 October 2026, with visitors at its foot for scale. What stands today is a little over 40 metres.
Elevation of the great chedi: what stands, and the height that is lost A simplified front view of the chedi as it stands today, drawn in solid brick colour: a stepped square base about 60 metres wide with a stairway up the middle, a terrace, then the upper storey with its arched niche, and a broken top at 40 to 42 metres. Above it, a hatched band between that level and about 80 metres marks the height the chedi is usually said to have reached before the earthquake of 1545. The band has no outline: the shape of the lost upper part is unknown. Lost in 1545shape unknown 40–42 mc. 80 mc. 60 m

40–42 m

What stands today

40.8 m in one Thai source, 42 m in another, on a base about 60 m square.6,9

c. 80 m

The usual estimate before 1545

A modern figure, not a measurement. The chronicles give 92 sok, an old cubit whose length here is uncertain1; 80 m is the figure used by the 2011 study3, and other estimates go up to 90 m9.

Simplified front view, drawn from our photographs and the published dimensions. It is not a reconstruction: the hatched band marks a height, not a shape. Nobody knows what the summit looked like.7
A dark bronze model of the chedi on a low plinth in the compound: elephants along the terrace, a stairway with nagas at its foot, and the upper tiers rising out of the frame
A bronze model stands in the compound. It carries the tiers on up where the real chedi breaks off: one modern idea of the lost summit, not a record of it.

The dates, and how sure we are of each

  1. c. 1391

    Begun under Saen Mueang Ma

    The king starts a chedi to make merit for his late father, Ku Na. The year is the traditional one.1

    Date handed down by the chronicles

  2. 1478–1481

    Enlarged under Tilokarat

    The minister Muen Dam Phra Khot directs the work; elephants are added along the terrace. Start given as 1478 or 1479 depending on the reckoning.1,2

    Date handed down by the chronicles

  3. 1545

    An earthquake brings down the summit

    The chronicle gives the day; a 2011 study finds the chedi lost about half its height, falling southward.2,3

    Established date

  4. 1551 or 1552

    The Emerald Buddha leaves

    King Setthathirat of Lan Xang takes it to Luang Prabang. It is now in Bangkok.5,6

    Sources disagree

  5. 1796 or 1800

    The city pillar arrives

    Prince Kawila moves the Inthakhin here from Wat Sadue Mueang.10,11

    Sources disagree

  6. 1928

    The Wihan Luang is built

    The great hall in front of the chedi goes up in 1928. A dated photo record shows it taken down to its walls in 2005–2006 and rebuilt on them in 2007–2008.4,9

    Established date

  7. 1990–1992

    The restoration

    The chedi is consolidated and its base widened; the summit is not rebuilt.6

    Established date

  8. 2026

    A World Heritage nomination

    Chiang Mai's dossier, which includes the temple, receives in August an evaluation mission from ICOMOS, UNESCO's advisory body for cultural sites; a decision is expected in 2027.12,13

    Established date

Reading the chedi, from the ground up

Stand at the fence on any side and the monument tells its own story, once you know where to look.

The chedi seen from a corner at dusk: two arched niches on the upper storey, elephants along the terrace, a steep stairway flanked by nagas, lanterns lit

Look closer: one monument, three ages

  1. The broken top, 1545. Above the last ledge: the break of 1545, left as it is. Bare brick, plants in the joints; no restoration has tried to rebuild what fell.
  2. A niche, c. 1480, repaired. One of four arched niches, one on each face of the upper storey. The east niche is the one believed to have held the Emerald Buddha.
  3. The elephants, c. 1480, partly remade 1990–1992. Brick and stucco elephants set into the wall along the terrace, front halves out, as if they carried the chedi. Some were remade in 1990–1992 where traces of them survived.
  4. The terrace, c. 1480, strengthened 1990–1992. A walkway runs round the upper storey behind a pierced parapet. Visitors do not go up: the temple's sign asks you not to climb the ancient buildings.
  5. A stairway, c. 1480. One per face, each guarded by nagas, the serpents that watch over thresholds in Buddhist art. More on the stairways just below.
  6. The nagas, c. 1480 type. At the foot of each balustrade, a five-headed naga. The type goes back to Tilokarat's rebuilding; no published study says how much of each one is original.

Start at the bottom. The square base and its terrace belong to Tilokarat's rebuilding, strengthened and widened in 1990–1992. The upper storey with its four niches is the part of his chedi that survived the earthquake, repaired in places. Above the last ledge the brick is bare: that is the break of 1545.6,7

The stairways were made for show rather than for use: nobody was meant to climb them.1 Only the east one has been turned into real steps. Today it has a handrail all the way up to the niche, and a sign at its foot, in Thai, forbids climbing the chedi without permission.

The east face of the chedi after sunset, seen head-on: a long stairway of real steps with a handrail between two stucco nagas, lanterns hanging over it, and at the top a small lit doorway in the niche
The east stairway at 18:08, the only one with real steps. At the top, in a small red-framed doorway, the jade image of the east niche; at the foot, a stand for offerings and the no-climbing sign.
Two brick and stucco elephants projecting from the terrace wall of the chedi, their grey render partly flaked away
Two of the elephants along the terrace, photographed on 22 October 2026. Where the grey render has flaked, a paler layer shows through. The chedi has twenty-eight of them.8

The same guardian, two ages

A five-headed naga in white stucco streaked black by rain, at the foot of one of the chedi's stairways
On the chedi. Five heads under a tall crest, white stucco streaked black by the rain. The type belongs to Tilokarat's rebuilding; a 2025 study calls these the oldest naga balustrades surviving in Lanna art.14
A gilded naga with coloured glass scales and an open red mouth at the stair of the Wihan Luang, behind a small 'Don't touch the Naga' sign
At the Wihan Luang. Gilded, with scales of coloured glass, behind a sign that says 'Don't touch the Naga'. The hall's own plaque credits the present pair to Khruba Panya, a monk and artist of the nineteenth century, and adds that they have been renovated many times.4

And the makara?

In Lanna art a stair balustrade often starts in the open jaws of a makara, a water monster with a crocodile's snout: the naga seems to pour out of it. The chedi's balustrades are of exactly this type.14

On the chedi itself we could not pick it out clearly in our dusk photographs. A few steps away it is plain to see: at the stair of the hall of Ajahn Mun, A on the plan below, the balustrade ends in a makara at the foot and a naga rearing up above it. Wat Phra Singh, ten minutes away, has another at eye level, pointed out on our page's annotated photo.

The foot of a stucco stair balustrade: a scaled creature with a large round eye, flame-shaped fins set with mirror glass and a clawed foot on the plinth, under the scaled body of the naga
The makara at the stair of the hall of Ajahn Mun, 17:53 on 22 October 2026: a clawed foot on the plinth, a scaled body, a head with a large round eye, flame-shaped fins set with mirror glass. The naga's scaled body rises above it.

The city pillar, brought here from elsewhere

The temple also keeps the Inthakhin, the pillar that stands for the city itself.

Most Thai cities have a foundation pillar, the lak mueang. Chiang Mai's is the Inthakhin, kept in a small white shrine just inside the main gate. Its legend begins before the city. In the version told by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the god Indra gave a pillar to the Lua, who lived in the valley before the Tai arrived, to keep them safe; two giants, kumbhanda, guarded it, and a Lua elder spent three years in meditation under a yang, a tall tropical tree.11

The facts are plainer. The pillar first stood at Wat Sadue Mueang, by the old provincial hall that is now the City Arts and Cultural Centre.15 Prince Kawila, who moved back into a largely deserted Chiang Mai in 1796, transferred it here: around 1800 in most published accounts, in 1796 according to the Lanna historian Pensupa Sukkata Jai-in, who also notes that the chronicle gives no reason for the move.6,10,11

Kawila is also said to have planted three yang trees as markers of the city. One survives, near the shrine, and people believe a tree spirit and a guardian giant live in it; when a heavy branch fell on 16 April 2026, it made the national news.16 Each year, for about a week in May or June depending on the lunar calendar, the city brings flowers to the pillar; in 2026 the festival ran from 13 to 19 May.11,17

The open door of the city pillar shrine, a gilded tiered structure inside, and in front a sign in Thai, English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean reading Men only
At the door. 'Men only', in five languages, on 22 October 2026.
Inside the city pillar shrine: a tiered gilded and mirrored structure topped by a small standing figure, surrounded by painted walls
Inside. A tiered, gilded and mirrored structure at the centre, under a small standing figure, with painted walls all round.

Twenty-eight minutes at dusk

Our visit of 22 October 2026, in the order the photographs were taken, between 17:34 and 18:02. The times are the camera's; the captions describe what the pictures show, and nothing more.

  1. The long Wihan Luang with its stacked roofs and gilded gable, and on the left in the distance the broken top of the chedi, early evening
    Still daylight. The sky is pale and the paper lanterns along the Wihan Luang are not yet lit. Far back on the left, the top of the chedi still catches the low sun.

  2. Sunset, by calculation: about 17:56 in Chiang Mai that day.

  3. The chedi seen from the foot of a stairway at dusk: two floodlit nagas, the steep dark ramp, a lit niche with a seated gilded Buddha, and the moon in the sky
    The lights come on. The floodlights at the foot of the stairway are on, and the niche above is lit, with its seated Buddha. The moon, a few days short of full, is already up on the right.

  4. A floodlit stucco naga seen in profile, its main head with smaller heads below, two terrace elephants behind against the evening sky
    A naga in floodlight. Lit from below, the main head and the smaller heads beneath it stand out cream against a sky turning darker. Above and behind, two of the elephants of the terrace.

  5. The photograph at the top of this page: three minutes after sunset, lanterns lit, the moon over the broken top.

  6. A lit niche in the chedi's weathered brick: a seated gilded Buddha in front of a gilded tree, under a worn stucco arch
    A niche after dark. Close up, the stucco arch is badly worn, and the brick around it has gone blue-grey in the dusk. Inside, a gilded seated Buddha in front of a gilded tree, in warm light.

  7. The Wihan Luang lit up after dusk, its silver and gold gable glowing, lamps along its white walls
    The Wihan Luang, lit. Forty seconds later, the great hall: lamps along its white walls, the gable glowing silver and gold.

  8. Two lit paper lanterns with cut-out patterns and long fringed tails, hanging from a pole against a deep blue sky
    Lanterns. Pointed paper lanterns, cut in floral patterns, hang along the paths. We do not know for which occasion they had been put up.

Around the chedi, in five stops

In walking order from the main gate on Phra Pok Klao Road.

Plan of Wat Chedi Luang, drawn from OpenStreetMap North is up. The main gate is on the east side, on Phra Pok Klao Road. 1, just inside the main gate, is the shrine of the city pillar, with a large old tree beside it. 2, the Wihan Luang, is the long hall west of the gate, facing it. 3, the great chedi, stands behind the Wihan Luang at the centre of the compound, on a square base about 60 metres a side. 4, the hall of the Reclining Buddha, is just west of the chedi. 5, the Monk Chat area, is north of the chedi. A, drawn in dotted lines, is an optional detour to the hall of Ajahn Mun, south-west of the chedi. Wat Phan Tao, a separate temple, adjoins the compound to the north-east. Wat Phan Tao A12345 Main gate Phra Pok Klao Rd N 50 m
Drawn from OpenStreetMap building outlines and checked against TempleCD's plan; the 50 m bar gives the scale. The dotted line is our suggested walk; A is an optional detour.

  1. The city pillar shrine

    Just inside the main gate, with the old yang tree beside it.

    Men may go in; women look from the door. The chapter on the city pillar explains why.

  2. The Wihan Luang

    The long assembly hall facing the gate.

    At the far end stands Phra Attharot, a gilded bronze Buddha, right hand raised, between his two chief disciples, Moggallana on the left and Sariputta on the right. The plaque in the hall gives its height as 8.23 metres and credits its making to Queen Tilokachuda; tradition dates it to 1411.4,6 Look also at the black lacquered pillars, stencilled in gold.

    A tall gilded standing Buddha with the right hand raised, against a red patterned backdrop, a smaller gilded disciple figure on the left

  3. The great chedi

    Behind the Wihan Luang, inside its own fence.

    Walk all the way round. Each face has its stairway and its niche; the elephants are easiest to see from the corners.

  4. The hall of the Reclining Buddha

    Just west of the chedi.

    A smaller hall with a reclining Buddha image, worth a minute on your way round the chedi.9

  5. Monk Chat

    Under a shelter north of the chedi.

    Since 1996 the Lanna campus of Mahamakut Buddhist University has set aside a corner where student monks talk with visitors, practising their English as you ask your questions. There is no official schedule; most accounts place it in the daytime, often the afternoon.18 As everywhere in Thailand, a woman should not touch a monk or hand him anything directly.

  6. The hall of Ajahn Mun

    Optional: south-west of the chedi, a short detour.

    A small hall dedicated to Ajahn Mun Bhuridatto, abbot of the temple in 1932. It keeps his ashes and a lifelike wax statue of him.4,9 Look at the foot of its stair: the clearest makara in the compound.

    The stair of a carved teak hall at dusk: a white stucco naga rears up at the end of the balustrade, its crest curving back, with a makara at its foot
A long roll of yellow patterned cloth covered in handwritten names and wishes, draped over a steel frame beside a locked donation box with a Thai label
Under a tent near the chedi, 18:11: a roll of yellow cloth that visitors sign with names and wishes. The box beside it reads, in Thai: make merit, cloth to wrap the Phra That Chedi Luang, give what your faith allows.

Before you go

Hours and prices published online disagree. These are the temple's own signs on the day of our visit; check them again at the gate.

What the signs said on 22 October 2026

  • A blue sign in Thai and English: open at 05.00, close at 22.00

    Gates

    Open 05:00 to 22:00

    These are the gate hours. Halls such as the Wihan Luang may close earlier; we did not see their hours posted. Websites give anything from 06:00–18:00 to 05:00–22:30.

  • The admission sign at Wat Chedi Luang: adults 50 baht, children shorter than 135 cm 20 baht

    Admission

    Adults 50 baht, children under 135 cm 20 baht

    Paid at the carved wooden ticket booth near the main gate. The temple began charging foreign visitors in July 2016, 40 baht at the time.19

  • Dress

    Shoulders and knees covered

    The sign rules out strapless and tank tops, wide necklines, crop tops, shorts and short skirts. Shawls and sarongs are available on site.

  • City pillar shrine

    Men only

    Women may pray outside, at the door.9

  • Temple rules

    No climbing on the ancient buildings

    The Do's and Don'ts sign also asks you to keep quiet, take off your shoes in the halls, never point your feet at a Buddha image, and be wary of overly friendly strangers who offer to show you around.

Getting there: the main gate is on Phra Pok Klao Road, in the middle of the old city. Wat Phra Singh is about 10 minutes' walk to the west, the Three Kings Monument about 8 minutes to the north, and the Lanna Architecture Center, in the old Khum Chao Burirat house, two minutes from the gate.

Wat Phan Tao, a small temple with an all-teak hall, adjoins the compound to the north-east; it is easy to see it on the same visit.

What nobody can tell you yet

Four questions this page cannot close, and where the answers stand.

  • Which elephants are original?

    The 1990–1992 work remade elephants where traces survived. Guidebooks sometimes say only one is original, and one dated photo record points to the north-east corner as the place where old ones may survive; we found no published survey that settles it.4,6

  • Was the summit destroyed by cannon fire in 1775?

    The idea appears in some guidebooks. The chronicle records the 1545 earthquake, and the 2011 study of that earthquake accounts for the collapse; we found no source for the cannon story.2,3

  • Who paid for the 1990s restoration?

    Many English-language pages say UNESCO and the Japanese government. Thai sources describe a 35-million-baht contract placed by the Fine Arts Department, and we found no document of foreign funding.6

  • Is Wat Chedi Luang a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

    No. It is one of the monuments in Chiang Mai's World Heritage nomination, on Thailand's tentative list since 2015. The dossier was submitted in 2026, an ICOMOS evaluation mission visited in August, and a decision is expected in 2027.13,20

Keep reading

Sources, and how we checked

The photographs, the times given in the dusk sequence and the content of the signs come from our visit on 22 October 2026. Sunset and the moon's phase that evening are calculated, not observed. The plan is drawn from OpenStreetMap. The history comes from the sources below, consulted on 23 October 2026; where they disagree, this page says so. Numbers in the text refer to this list.

  1. 1. The chedi: founding, dimensions, earthquake, stairways: Rungroj Thammarungruang, เจดีย์หลวง (Chedi Luang), Arts in Southeast Asia, Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre (in Thai)
  2. 2. Tilokarat's rebuilding, the Emerald Buddha, the 1545 chronicle: Phra Phongrawi Uttarabhaddho et al., Panidhana Journal 18(1), 2022 (in Thai)
  3. 3. The 1545 earthquake: Kázmér, Sanittham, Charusiri, Pailoplee, Archaeoseismology of the AD 1545 earthquake in Chiang Mai, 2011
  4. 4. Transcriptions of the temple's plaques, dated photographs and a plan: TempleCD, Wat Chedi Luang
  5. 5. The Emerald Buddha's departure: Teshan Laucirica, The Emerald Buddha, University of Washington, 2023
  6. 6. The 1990–1992 restoration, Phra Attharot, the temple: Dhammathai, วัดเจดีย์หลวง วรวิหาร (in Thai)
  7. 7. The lost summit as an open question: Siwaporn Wongdaeng, master's thesis, Silpakorn University, 2013 (in Thai)
  8. 8. The restoration and its critics: Chiang Mai News, 14 December 2024 (in Thai)
  9. 9. Heights, the Wihan Luang, the pillar shrine: Prateep Puechthonglang, Savant Journal of Social Sciences 1(1), 2024 (in Thai)
  10. 10. The move of the pillar, and its date: Pensupa Sukkata Jai-in, Matichon Sut Sapda, August 2011, reposted (in Thai)
  11. 11. The pillar's legend and festival: Tourism Authority of Thailand, TAT News, 27 April 2012 (in Thai)
  12. 12. The temples in the nomination: Pattaya Mail, 28 July 2026
  13. 13. The World Heritage nomination: Pattaya Mail, 21 July 2026
  14. 14. The naga and makara balustrades: Nuttawan Numbut, Thai Khadi Journal 22(2), 2025 (in Thai)
  15. 15. Where the pillar first stood: Surapol Damrikul, Journal of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University (in Thai)
  16. 16. The surviving yang tree: Thairath English, 17 April 2026
  17. 17. The 2026 pillar festival: Chiang Mai Citylife, 11 May 2026
  18. 18. Monk Chat: Mahamakut Buddhist University, Lanna Campus, History of Monk Chat
  19. 19. The admission fee in 2016: Chiang Mai Citylife, 2 June 2016
  20. 20. Thailand's tentative list: UNESCO World Heritage Centre, tentative list, reference 6003

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A monk in orange robes photographing the teak roof of a Lanna temple in the old city of Chiang Mai

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