Nakhon Ratchasima

The capital of the province is the city of Nakhon Ratchasima in Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima district, also called Khorat.

• Name — Nakhon Ratchasima • Official Name — Nakhon Ratchasima province • Native Name — นครราชสีมา • Settlement Type — Province • Nickname — Korat (Thai: โคราช) • Mottoes — เมืองหญิงกล้า ผ้าไหมดี หมี่โคราช ปราสาทหิน ดินด่านเกวียน

• Illustration — Khao Yai National Park The province is at the west end of the Khorat Plateau, separated from the Chao Phraya river valley by the Phetchabun and Dong Phaya Yen mountain ranges. Two national parks are in the province: Khao Yai in the west and Thap Lan in the south. Both parks are in the forested mountains of the Sankamphaeng Range, the southern prolongation of the Dong Phaya Yen mountains. The total forest area is 3,193 km² or 15.4 percent of provincial area. Nakhon Ratchasima is a large province on the northeastern plateau. It is 259 km from Bangkok and has an area of 20,736 km2.

The province's two national parks, with two others, make up region 1 (Prachinburi) of Thailand's protected areas. (Visitors in fiscal year 2024) • Thap Lan National Park — 2236 km2 — (96,852) • Khao Yai National Park — 2166 km2 — (1,887,335)

• Illustration — Phimai historical park

Two excavated prehistoric sites lie in the upper Mun valley in Non Sung district. Iron Age deposits have also been found under later temples elsewhere in the province. Higham reports an Iron Age cemetery beneath the main sanctuary at Prasat Phanom Wan, on the same orientation as the temple. At Ban Suai, on the outskirts of Phimai, excavation has shown a major Iron Age presence running into the foundation of the brick temple there. He dates the final Iron Age phase of the valley to the 4th and 5th centuries CE. For Ban Non Wat, Sing C. Chew reports from Charles Higham's excavations a Neolithic settlement founded in the mid-seventeenth century BCE, where foragers met farmers who already grew rice. Stone for adzes was not available nearby, which implies exchange, and spindle whorls point to weaving. Chew gives the late Neolithic as ending about 1280 BCE, the site's Bronze Age as 1280 to 400 BCE and its Iron Age as 400 BCE to about 300 CE. Elsewhere he dates the region's transition to bronze to the eleventh century BCE. Grave goods were richest between about 1000 and 800 BCE. Wealth then fell away and did not recover until about 200 BCE. Higham attributes the accumulation to an emerging social hierarchy but not the decline; Chew's own suggestion that trade and climate beyond the region were at work is offered as speculation, for want of temperature series and tree-ring studies. Lead isotopes in slag and cast metal at the site indicate copper from the Khao Wong Prachan valley in central Thailand by about 1000 BCE. At Noen U-Loke, also in Non Sung, occupation began in the late Bronze Age and ended between 400 and 500 CE. One man was buried wearing 150 bronze bangles, bronze toe and finger rings and three bronze belts, with ear coils of silver covered in gold. Chew also gathers work on the moated settlements of the plateau and on the climate they stood in. Glen Scott and Dougald O'Reilly plotted the moated sites of northeastern Thailand against rainfall and soil permeability. Most lie where rainfall is lowest and where soils lose least water to seepage, which they read as evidence that the moats stored water through a drier phase between about 200 BCE and 500 CE. O'Reilly adds that control of water under such conditions could give local elites a means of holding power. Charles Higham dates the digging of moats and banks in the valley to at least the 4th century BCE and has them maintained through the Iron Age. He notes that the valley lies in a double rain shadow, from the Phetchabun Range to the west and the Truong Son Cordillera to the east. He reads the moats as serving several purposes at once, among them rice cultivation, a supply of fish and shellfish, and defence. Iron arrowheads and spears become commoner in the later phases, and one man at Noen U-Loke was killed by an arrow that severed his spinal column. William Boyd's reconstruction of the river pattern places the settlements on watercourses, some of which have since shifted. Higham also reports that most and perhaps all of the prehistoric mounds of the upper Mun are ringed by small steep-sided satellite mounds whose excavation yields the equipment of salt boiling, with pottery of Iron Age date. He treats salt as the local resource that could be traded for the glass, agate, carnelian and metals the graves contain. Pollen studies by William Boyd and Robert McGrath on the upper Mun floodplain, and by Boyd and Nigel Chang, are read as showing clearance from the early Iron Age, with forest regeneration at first. By the late Iron Age of about 500 to 600 CE there was none, and grass and scrub replaced the forest. Elizabeth Moore had read the moated settlements and their distribution as marking chiefdoms in late prehistory or the early historic period. Chew notes against this that no central places such as citadels have been found, and that the low level of archaeological work does not rule them out. Higham puts the same reservation more strongly. Much more must be known, he writes, before it can be concluded that hereditary chiefs lived in central places and controlled lesser sites around them, and if they existed they have not yet been found. Higham traces the social ranks of the early historic period in the Mun valley back to the Late Iron Age. He argues for an agricultural revolution of ploughing and permanent, perhaps irrigated, rice fields by the fifth century CE, which underwrote a rapid rise of local elites. He gives iron working and the control of salt as further factors, and posits that these leaders became the poñ named in pre-Angkorian inscriptions. A survey of the upper Mun by Caitlin Evans, Nigel Chang and Naho Shimizu gives a different emphasis. They find that the valley between the first and ninth centuries did not sustain unified polities of the size then forming in central Thailand and in Zhenla. Settlements grew and consolidated in the Late Iron Age, but they see little evidence of the reorganisation that multi-tiered rule on Indic models would require. Communities, on their reading, kept a village and kinship focus well into the historic period. Buddhism and Brahmanism were taken up by about the sixth or seventh century. They hold that the valley came under a single polity only in the ninth or tenth, a change they ascribe to Angkorian expansion to the northwest. The moated town of Mueang Sema, on the Lam Ta Khong in the Mun system in Sung Noen district, covers over 150 ha. Its excavator divided the occupation into three phases. The first, of the 4th and 5th centuries, is classified as late prehistoric. The second, of the 6th to 9th, is taken as Dvaravati on the pottery and on clear evidence for Buddhism. In the third, of the 9th to 12th, Buriram ceramics and Song dynasty ware mark growing Khmer influence. Stephen A. Murphy disputes the first of those labels. A ridge ware from the earliest layers also occurs in two layers at Chan Sen, where it develops into a common Dvaravati type. A second earthenware group of the Pasak region appears at Chan Sen in a layer dated to the mid-4th to 6th century. He adds that the site has no earlier prehistoric levels at all, which in his view makes late prehistory the wrong term here and proto-Dvaravati the better one. The finds from the town include a dhammacakra and a sandstone Buddha in the mahāparinirvāṇa posture 11 metres long. Its sema stones are another matter. Seventeen are recorded, none of them carrying narrative scenes or motifs, and all are either badly eroded or plain, which does not match the size and standing of the site. Some remain in place around a Dvaravati structure that may have been an ordination hall. The dhammacakra is the only one known from the whole of the Khorat Plateau, against more than forty recorded in central Thailand. Murphy holds that apart from Mueang Sema it is hard to make a case for a strong or meaningful political presence of Dvaravati overlords on the plateau. A survey by Sujit Wongthes describes villages ringing the town, each centred on a temple. They held Dvaravati Buddha images and Lopburi-style door posts, and alignments of standing stones lie at Ban Hin Tang. He read an earthen dam across the Huai Krok Chanuan and a set of canals as irrigation works. He put the reclining Buddha at up to 12 metres and reported a view that it was first a standing image that later fell.

The Wat Chan Thuek inscription, from Pak Chong, names a devī of the ruler of Dvāravatī and is the only stone inscription to do so. Nicolas Revire dates the stone to the seventh century. How it should be read is disputed, one reading making the queen and the daughter two people, another one, and Claude Jacques taking the image set up to be the goddess Śrī rather than the Buddha. Three inscriptions in the province record religious foundations of the eighth to tenth centuries. K. 1155, found at Ban Phan Dung, opens with a salutation to Śiva. It records that a certain Śrīvatsa installed images of Harihara and Viṣṇu in 718 śaka (796 CE), the earliest mention of Harihara in the epigraphy of Thailand. The stone is now in the Mahaviravong National Museum. The same stone later records a hermitage and an image of the Buddha in 747 śaka (825 CE). K. 1141, the Mueang Sema inscription of 892 śaka (970 CE), retells that sequence and carries it further. The Buddha image was replaced by a Devī set up by the Brahmin Śrī Śikharasvāmī, and the Devī in turn by a large Śiva-liṅga raised by an unnamed king in 761 śaka (839 CE). Julia Estève takes the two stones to refer to a single sacred site, named Damraṅ in the Khmer portion of K. 1141. The Bo Ika inscription (K. 400), also from the area of Mueang Sema, carries a donation by the śrīcanāśeśvara, the lord of Canāśa, to the local Buddhist community on one face. The other face is dated 790 śaka (868 CE), invokes Śiva as the supreme deity, and records the installation of a golden liṅga by one Aṁśadeva. Nicolas Revire reads the group as showing Hindu images installed both before and after a Buddha, with nothing to mark either as the superior. The Sab Bak inscription (K. 1158), recovered at Sab Bak in the province, is bilingual, in Sanskrit and Khmer, and dated 988 śaka (1066 CE), in the reign of Udayādityavarman. Its Khmer part records that nine images of Buddhalokeśvara had been set up on a mountain called Abhayagiri by one Śrī Satyavarman, who possessed siddhi, so that Javā should not attack the Khmer domain. The images had fallen to pieces, an unnamed Guru of Dharaṇīndrapura had them repaired, and his pupil Vraḥ Dhanu re-established them in that year. Whether the stone stood where it was found is disputed. Arlo Griffiths reports Claude Jacques as holding that so small a stela may have been carried from anywhere. He reports Michael Vickery as seeing no reason to doubt the find-spot, and as giving a ground for thinking the stone local. The area around Khorat was already an important centre under the Khmer empire in the 11th century, as the temple ruins in Phimai historical park show. Seven Sanskrit inscriptions of śaka 1108, that is 1186, record hospital foundations of the Angkorian king Jayavarman VII (r. 1181–1218). They are numbered K.368, K.375, K.386, K.387, K.395, K.402 and K.952, and were found at sites in the Nakhon Ratchasima, Chaiyaphum and Surin regions, at Sai Fong on the Mekong and near Ubon. Five of the seven come from this region. David K. Wyatt, who lists them, reads the Khorat Plateau together with Pracinburi as having remained within the Angkorian sphere in those years. The inscriptions of the same period from the Chao Phraya plain to the west show no such indication. The Phimai National Museum also holds an inscribed stone found in Kaset Sombun district in Chaiyaphum province, in Sanskrit written in Khmer script, which mentions a Buddha image set up inside a boundary marked by sema stones.

The province is divided into 32 districts (amphoes). The districts are further subdivided into 263 sub-districts (tambons) and 3,743 villages (mubans). • Illustration — Map of thirty-two districts • Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima • Khon Buri • Soeng Sang • Khong • Ban Lueam • Chakkarat • Chok Chai • Dan Khun Thot • Non Thai • Non Sung • Kham Sakaesaeng • Bua Yai • Prathai • Pak Thong Chai • Phimai • Huai Thalaeng • Chum Phuang • Sung Noen • Kham Thale So • Sikhio • Pak Chong • Nong Bun Mak • Kaeng Sanam Nang • Non Daeng • Wang Nam Khiao • Thepharak • Mueang Yang • Phra Thong Kham • Lam Thamenchai • Bua Lai • Sida • Chaloem Phra Kiat Districts General Information • Class — Name — Area (km 2) — Distance to Provincial Hall (km) — Established — Sub-districts (Units) — Villages (Units) — Population • Male — Female — Total • Special — Mueang Nakhon Ratchasima — 755.596 — 0 — 1895 — 25 — 243 — 212,627 — 221,211 — 433,838 • 1 — Dan Khun Thot — 1,428.14 — 84 — 1908 — 16 — 220 — 62,571 — 63,347 — 125,918 • 1 — Bua Yai — 305.028 — 101 — 1886 — 10 — 121 — 41,855 — 42,278 — 84,133 • 1 — Pak Thong Chai — 1,374.32 — 34 — 1910 — 16 — 213 — 56,716 — 58,950 — 115,666 • 1 — Phimai — 896.871 — 60 — 1900 — 12 — 208 — 64,421 — 66,024 — 130,445 • 1 — Sikhio — 1,247.07 — 45 — 1955 — 12 — 169 — 60,898 — 61,163 — 122,061 • 1 — Pak Chong — 1,825.17 — 85 — 1955 — 12 — 217 — 91,146 — 91,685 — 182,831 • 2 — Khon Buri — 1,816.85 — 58 — 1939 — 12 — 152 — 46,086 — 47,167 — 93,253 • 2 — Chakkarat — 501.672 — 40 — 1953 — 8 — 108 — 34,441 — 34,643 — 69,084 • 2 — Chok Chai — 503.917 — 30 — 1905 — 10 — 126 — 37,297 — 39,223 — 76,520 • 2 — Non Sung — 676.981 — 37 — 1897 — 16 — 195 — 62,639 — 65,374 — 128,013 • 2 — Prathai — 600.648 — 97 — 1961 — 13 — 148 — 38,622 — 38,761 — 77,282 • 2 — Sung Noen — 782.853 — 36 — 1901 — 11 — 125 — 38,429 — 40,181 — 78,610 • 2 — Huai Thalaeng — 495.175 — 65 — 1961 — 10 — 120 — 37,443 — 37,131 — 74,574 • 2 — Chum Phuang — 540.567 — 98 — 1959 — 9 — 130 — 40,918 — 41,038 — 82,161 • 3 — Soeng Sang — 1,200.24 — 88 — 1976 — 6 — 84 — 33,733 — 33,302 — 67,032 • 3 — Khong — 454.737 — 79 — 1938 — 10 — 155 — 40,052 — 41,076 — 81,128 • 3 — Non Thai — 541.994 — 28 — 1900 — 10 — 131 — 36,126 — 37,592 — 73,718 • 3 — Kham Sakaesaeng — 297.769 — 50 — 1968 — 7 — 72 — 21,423 — 21,753 — 43,176 • 3 — Kaeng Sanam Nang — 107.258 — 130 — 1986 — 5 — 56 — 18,782 — 19,054 — 37,836 • 3 — Wang Nam Khiao — 1,130.00 — 70 — 1992 — 5 — 83 — 20,416 — 20,503 — 40,910 • 4 — Ban Lueam — 218.875 — 85 — 1976 — 4 — 39 — 10,620 — 10,732 — 21,351 • 4 — Nong Bunmak — 590.448 — 52 — 1983 — 9 — 104 — 29,424 — 29,316 — 58,740 • 4 — Thepharak — 357.465 — 90 — 1995 — 4 — 58 — 12,002 — 11,451 — 23,453 • 4 — Phra Thong Kham — 359.522 — 45 — 1996 — 5 — 74 — 21,260 — 21,680 — 42,940 • 4 — Sida — 162.825 — 85 — 1997 — 5 — 50 — 12,087 — 12,133 — 24,220 • 4 — Bua Lai — 106.893 — 103 — 1997 — 4 — 45 — 12,374 — 12,450 — 24,824 • 4 — Non Daeng — 193.407 — 30 — 1989 — 5 — 65 — 12,597 — 12,984 — 25,581 • 4 — Kham Thale So — 203.605 — 22 — 1966 — 5 — 46 — 14,091 — 14,021 — 28,112 • 4 — Mueang Yang — 255.522 — 110 — 1995 — 4 — 44 — 14,321 — 14,038 — 28,359 • 4 — Lam Thamenchai — 308.457 — 120 — 1996 — 4 — 59 — 16,114 — 15,953 — 32,067 • 4 — Chaloem Phra Kiat — 254.093 — 18 — 1996 — 5 — 61 — 16,966 — 17,411 — 34,377

• Illustration — The Great Hall of Wat Luang Phor Toh in Sikhio district As of 26 November 2019 there are: one Nakhon Ratchasima Provincial Administration Organisation (ongkan borihan suan changwat) and 90 municipal (thesaban) areas in the province. Nakhon Ratchasima municipality has city (thesaban nakhon) status. Bua Yai, Mueang Pak, Pak Chong and Sikhio municipalities have town (thesaban mueang) status. Further 85 subdistrict municipalities (thesaban tambon).The non-municipal areas are administered by 243 Subdistrict Administrative Organisations - SAO (ongkan borihan suan tambon). Nakhon Ratchasima is also home of the Klongpai Central Prison.

• Illustration — One of the halls inside Terminal 21 Shopping Mall • Illustration — CentralPlaza at sunset Khorat's economy has traditionally been heavily dependent on agriculture. It is known as a processing centre for Isan's production of rice, tapioca, and sugar. The Isan region accounts for half of Thailand's exports of those commodities. Khorat is also one of two sites in Thailand manufacturing disk drives by Seagate Technology, employing 12,100 workers in Khorat.

Nakhon Ratchasima has Nakhon Ratchasima Airport, but it has no scheduled flights. The nearest working airport is in Buriram and has flights to and from Bangkok.

The railway system in Nakhon Ratchasima is on both northeastern routes from Bangkok Railway Station. Nakhon Ratchasima province has eight main railway stations. In 2017, a 60-kilometre dual-track line will connect Korat to Khon Kaen province. It is the first segment of a dual track network that will connect Isan with the Laem Chabang seaport. Mueang District is served by two stations: Nakhon Ratchasima railway station and Thanon Chira Junction railway station.

Highway 2 (Mittraphap Road) is the main route that connects nine districts in Nakhon Ratchasima including Muang district. This route also connects Nakhon Ratchasima to Saraburi and Khon Kaen provinces. Hwy 24 links Si Khio District from Hwy 2 to Pak Thongcha, Chok Chai, and Nong Bunnak Districts and to Buriram province. A new motorway connecting Khorat to Bangkok is under construction in 2016 and will reduce travel time on the 250 kilometre journey to just over two hours.

Nakhon Ratchasima has hospitals in mostly the public sector, but some in the private sector. Its main hospital is Maharat Nakhon Ratchasima Hospital, which is the largest provincial hospital operated by the Ministry of Public Health and one of the main hospitals for the MOPH-Mahidol CPIRD Program.

• Illustration — Main gate of Khorat

There are four universities in the area. • Nakhon Ratchasima Rajabhat University • Rajamangala University of Technology Isan • Suranaree University of Technology • Vongchavalitkul University

• Ratchasima Wittayalai School • Saint Mary's College Nakhon Ratchasima • Suranaree Wittaya School • MBAC • Boonwatthana • Phimai Witthaya • Assumption School Nakhon Ratchasima • Fort Surathamphithak School • Phoowittaya School (lab school project) • Plookpanya School • Koratpittayakom school • Wangrongnoi school • Phatongkhamwittaya school • Surawiwat school in Suranaree University of Technology • Metapaht School

• St Stephen's International School (SIS) (Khao Yai Campus) • Adventists International Mission School (AIMS) (Nakhon Ratchasima Campus) • Anglo Singapore International School (Korat Campus) • Wesley International School

• Health — Education — Employment — Income • — — — • 33 — 58 — 10 — 55 • Housing — Family — Transport — Participation • — — — • 29 — 26 — 58 — 30 • Province Krabi, with an HAI 2022 value of 0.6471 is "average", occupies place 30 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. The National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) took over this task in 2017. • |Rank — Classification • | 1–13 — "High" • |14–29 — "Somewhat high" • |30–45 — "Average" • |46–61 — "Somewhat low" • |62–77 — "Low" role= "presentation" • Map with provinces and HAI 2022 rankings *

• Illustration — Korat Cat (si sawat) The Korat cat is a natural breed, and one of the oldest stable cat breeds. Originating in Nakhon Ratchasima province at Phimai, it is named after its province of origin. In Thailand the breed is known as si sawat, meaning "colour of the sawat seed" (bluish-gray). Korat cats are distinguished not only by the colour of their fur. Genuine Korat cats have a heart-shaped face when viewed from any angle and shorter grey hair with silver tips. The true breed's eyes are yellow with an inner green circle. They must be slender and agile. The cat's tail must be slender. Cats with crooked tails are considered inauspicious. In 1965, Korat cats were first registered in the US by the Korat Cat Fanciers Association. The cats that formed the breed were first imported from Thailand by Jean L. Johnson in 1959. In 1966 the breed was accepted by the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA). The Korat breed is now accepted by cat associations around the world. The International Maew Boran Association (TIMBA; "maew boran" means "ancient cat") was formed in Thailand to register Thai cats, including Korats, and to issue pedigrees for them. It also gives Thai breeders a voice in English, since "...Thai breeders...do not speak English, and farang breeders do not speak Thai."