Famous Landmarks in Bangkok

Grand Palace

1782

Encloses a mix of Thai-style temple and palace buildings alongside sections built in a Western architectural idiom, all set within one long perimeter wall.

Construction began in May 1782, when a newly enthroned monarch moved the capital across the river and ordered a walled compound built to serve as royal residence and seat of government. Later reigns added buildings within the walls, particularly in the late nineteenth century. The king, his court and the government were based here until 1925; after the monarchy became constitutional in 1932, the compound stopped being a permanent residence but is still used for state ceremonies and draws millions of visitors a year.

• The king, his court and the entire government lived and worked inside the walls until 1925.
• The site draws over eight million visitors a year, despite its formal registration as a historic site having been declined.

Photo: Andy Marchand (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Wat Arun

1656

A single tall, tapering central spire rises above the surrounding temple halls right at the water's edge — the most rebuilt and most distinctive part of the site, added long after its founding.

The temple takes its name from a deity associated with the dawn and stands on the river's west bank, facing the old royal district across the water. Part of the site dates to at least the seventeenth century, but the tall central spire recognised today was built in the early nineteenth century, over two successive reigns. Its design layers Hindu and Buddhist symbolism onto local temple tradition, reflecting the mixed influences absorbed by the city's early religious architecture.

• Its landmark spire was not part of the original temple; the structure seen today was largely built in the early nineteenth century, under two successive reigns.
• It is named after a Hindu deity linked to the light of dawn, despite being a Buddhist temple.

Photo: Slyronit (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Wat Pho

1788

Recognisable from outside by tall chedis and several temple halls inside a walled compound directly beside the former palace grounds; the reclining Buddha the temple is best known for is kept indoors, out of view from the exterior.

The temple stands on the same river island as the Grand Palace, immediately to its south, and ranks among the six temples classed at Thailand's highest grade of royal temple. It was rebuilt on an earlier temple site by the founding king of the ruling dynasty and later expanded and renovated under a subsequent reign. It holds the country's largest collection of Buddha images, including a reclining figure 46 metres long, and a school of traditional medicine still operates on the grounds.

• Its reclining Buddha figure measures 46 metres long, the largest in the temple's collection of Buddha images.
• Inscriptions placed around the complex for public instruction have been recognised by UNESCO's Memory of the World programme.
• A school of traditional medicine still operates within the temple grounds.

Photo: Michelle Maria (CC BY 3.0)

Wat Benchamabophit

1911 · Narisara Nuwattiwong

Clad almost entirely in white marble, with steeply tiered roofs, tall gables and elaborate finials — a use of stone that sets it apart from the brick and stucco of most other temples in the city.

Completed in 1911 to a design by Narisara Nuwattiwong, the temple is built almost entirely of white marble, which gave rise to its popular English name, the Marble Temple. Its composition of high gables, multi-tiered roofs and elaborate finials exemplifies Bangkok's ornate temple style, while its layout and decoration blend Thai religious tradition with European architectural influence from the reign in which it was built. It remains one of the city's most visited religious sites.

• Its popular English name, the Marble Temple, comes directly from being built almost entirely in white marble.

Photo: Preecha.MJ (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Democracy Monument

1939

Stands alone at the centre of a large traffic circle on a broad, straight avenue, with open road on every side and no other structure sharing the roundabout.

The monument occupies a traffic circle at the intersection of two roads on one of the city's principal avenues, roughly midway between a former royal cremation ground and another well-known temple. It marks the shift from absolute to constitutional monarchy and was completed in 1939. Two metro lines, once built, are planned to serve the site directly, at a station that will carry the monument's name.

• A future metro station named after the monument is planned to be served by two separate subway lines once they are built.

Photo: Marcin Konsek (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall

1915 · Mario Tamagno

Built in a European Renaissance Revival style rather than a traditional Thai temple form — a pale stone hall standing within a palace complex, still used occasionally for state occasions.

Commissioned in 1908 as a royal reception hall within a palace complex, the building was not finished until 1915, five years after the death of the monarch who ordered it. It was designed by Mario Tamagno in a Renaissance Revival style unusual among the city's royal buildings and is now used only occasionally for state functions. Until it closed indefinitely in October 2017, part of the building operated as a museum displaying royally sponsored handicrafts.

• Construction outlasted the monarch who commissioned it: work continued for five years after his death in 1910.
• Until an indefinite closure in October 2017, part of the building operated as a public museum of royally sponsored handicrafts.

Photo: deror_avi (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Giant Swing

1784

A single freestanding swing frame roughly 21 metres tall, standing in an open plaza in front of a temple — its height and shape, rather than any surrounding building, are what set it apart.

Standing about 21 metres tall, the structure once held a wooden swing used in a Brahmin ceremony performed before a temple; the ritual is no longer held, and the structure survives today as a landmark and tourist attraction. It stands directly in front of the temple and before a royal Brahmin office building tied to the same religious tradition, in a district named after the swing itself.

• The ceremony once performed here drew on the recitation of Tamil devotional hymns, an Indian religious tradition embedded in a local royal ritual.
• The swinging ritual it was built for is no longer performed; the structure now survives only as a landmark.

Photo: Yakuzakorat (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Wat Phra Kaew

1783

The ordination hall's roof is covered in blue, yellow and orange glazed tiles, its gable ends carved with a Hindu deity riding a mythical half-man, half-bird creature that grips a serpent in each hand; a low wall studded with small spired pavilions holding gilded boundary stones encloses the hall.

The complex stands within the walls of a former royal palace, commissioned in 1783 by Rama I, the first king of the Chakri dynasty, and modelled partly on a temple that had served an earlier capital's palace. Unlike an ordinary monastery, it keeps no resident monks; those who perform rites here are invited from elsewhere and leave afterwards. Its statue, moved from a temple across the river, was installed in 1785 and is venerated as the country's palladium. Rama III ordered a major renovation of the exterior in 1831, and the site remains the setting for major state ceremonies today.

• The venerated statue at the centre of the complex was captured from Vientiane, Laos, in 1779 and kept at a temple on the opposite riverbank before its ceremonial transfer here in 1785.
• Although built inside a royal palace, the temple houses no living quarters for monks; those performing rituals are invited from other temples and leave once the rite is finished.
• The gold garments draped over the statue are ceremonially changed three times a year to mark the change of season, a rite performed by the king or a royal appointee.

Photo: Nawit science (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Erawan Shrine

1956

The gilded image at the centre of the shrine has four faces and six arms and sits enthroned in an open-air pavilion at a busy street corner ringed by shopping malls and hotel towers; costumed dancers are sometimes hired to perform beside it in fulfilment of a granted wish.

An astrologer's advice shaped the shrine's origin: built in 1956 as part of the government-owned Erawan Hotel after construction there was plagued by cost overruns, injuries and a lost shipload of marble, blamed on the site's foundation being laid on the wrong date. The Fine Arts Department designed and cast the original statue of Phra Phrom, a Thai form of the Hindu god Brahma worshipped chiefly as a guardian spirit. That statue was destroyed by a hammer-wielding man in 2006; the current, visually identical statue, installed the same year, incorporates some of its fragments.

• The man who destroyed the original statue with a hammer in 2006 was beaten to death by bystanders soon afterward.
• The replacement statue was installed on 21 May 2006 at the exact moment the sun stood directly overhead.
• A duplicate of the statue, cast in the same mould entirely in metal, is kept at the National Museum of Thailand for safekeeping.

Photo: Terence Ong (CC BY 2.5)

Wat Saket

A tree-covered artificial hill rises within the compound, its irregular, rounded profile the result of a collapsed, abandoned construction rather than deliberate design; a small chedi sheathed in gold sits at its summit, and concrete retaining walls added in the 1940s ring its base to halt erosion.

The temple dates to the Ayutthaya period, when it was known as Wat Sakae. After Bangkok became the capital, Rama I renovated it and gave it its present name, meaning 'to wash the hair', recalling his stop here to bathe after a military campaign. Its best-known feature, an artificial hill crowned with a small gold-covered chedi, began as a giant chedi commissioned by Rama III that collapsed under its own weight during construction; the mound was later completed as a chedi under Rama IV and Rama V, and a relic of the Buddha brought from Sri Lanka was enshrined inside.

• The hill's grassy mound was for a time used as a lookout post by soldiers watching for approaching enemy armies, before its still-unfinished chedi was completed decades later.
• During a severe 1820 cholera outbreak that killed more than 30,000 people in the city, unburied corpses left in the temple grounds drew flocks of vultures, giving rise to a saying that entered popular speech.
• Every November, a long red cloth is carried up the hill in a candlelight procession and wrapped around the chedi at its summit, a tradition observed since the reign of Rama V.

Photo: Adam Jones (CC BY-SA 2.0)