Ratchaburi province (, ) or Rat Buri () is one of Thailand's seventy-six provinces (changwat) lies in Western Thailand. Neighbouring provinces are (from north clockwise) Kanchanaburi, Nakhon Pathom, Samut Sakhon, Samut Songkhram and Phetchaburi. In the west it borders the Tanintharyi Region of Myanmar.
Ratchaburi is west of Bangkok and borders Myanmar to the west with the Tenasserim Hills as a natural border. The Mae Klong flows through the centre of Ratchaburi town. The east of the province is river plain, the west is hill country in the Tenasserim Hills, and its limestone caves hold large bat colonies.
The provincial town has been traced to the Dvaravati period, and the moated town of Khu Bua lies southeast of it. A second ancient town at Sa Kosi Narai in Ban Pong district has been identified with one of the cities named in the Preah Khan inscription.
Most of the population is Buddhist, with Mon communities in the northern districts and Karen near the Myanmar border. The provincial seal shows a royal sword and sandals, for a name rendered both as 'the land of the king' and as 'city of the king', and the province is known for the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market and for its dragon jars.
Toponymy The name Ratchaburi has been rendered both as 'the land of the king'Choomjit, Y. (1994). History of Ratchaburi. Bangkok: Odienstore. and as 'city of the king'. It is said to derive from the birth of Rama I in the town.
Geography Ratchaburi province is a medium-sized province with an area of about . The eastern part of the province contains the flat river plains of the Mae Klong, crisscrossed by many khlongs. The most famous tourist spot in this area is the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. The west of the province is more mountainous, and includes the Tenasserim Hills. As the mountains are made mostly of limestone, there are several caves containing stalactites. Some caves are inhabited by large colonies of bats, and it is an impressive sight when they swarm out in the evening to feed. Other caves like the Khao Bin are accessible for visitors.
The area of Ratchaburi province is divided into three parts. First, the border in the west which is shared with Myanmar and is about long. The second contains the Tenasserim mountains and forests with an elevation of about 200–300 meters. The central area of the province is rich in wetlands due to river flow. Ratchaburi has important natural resources in its forest of which it covers an area of or 33 percent of provincial area. Moreover, it has minerals such as tin, tantalum, feldspar, quartz, limestone, and marlstone.
The main river of the western part is the Phachi River. On the left bank of the Phachi is the Chaloem Phrakiat Thai Prachan National Park along with eight other national parks, make up region 3 (Ban Pong) of Thailand's protected areas. There is one wildlife sanctuary, Mae Nam Phachi Wildlife Sanctuary, along with two other wildlife sanctuaries, make up region 3 (Ban Pong) of Thailand's protected areas. Chaloem Phrakiat Thai Prachan National Park, 56,310 visitors in fiscal year 2024. Mae Nam Phachi Wildlife Sanctuary, .
Location protected areas of Ratchaburi National park 1 Thai Prachan Wildlife sanctuary 2 Mae Nam Phachi
History
The ancient town Archaeological sites and finds have been read as evidence of settlement since the Middle Stone Age, and an ancient town of the Dvaravati period has been identified in Mueang Ratchaburi district. The history of the city of Ratchaburi dates back to the Dvaravati period, when it was an important city of the Mon Kingdom. Of the city of Khu Bua nearby only ruins remains. According to legend it dates back to the mythical Suvannabhumi Kingdom predating Dvaravati. A second ancient town survives at Sa Kosi Narai in Ban Pong district. The site signage names it Śamvūkapaṭṭana, after one of the cities of the Preah Khan inscription, and Walailak Songsiri reports that identification as one made by scholars rather than endorsing it. The Ban Pong placement has a chain behind it. George Cœdès, noting the name Cāmbūka on a Dvaravati-style Buddha recovered at Lopburi, went no further than the Menam valley. Phōngsi Wanasin and Thiwa Supcanya located it at Ban Pong under code no. 10.2 of their survey. They followed M. C. Subhadradis Diskul, who in 1966 quoted Tri Amatyakul's proposal without endorsing it and printed a plan of the supposed site.
A survey by Phōngsi Wanasin and Thiwa Supcanya found the ancient settlements of the plain arranged in two rows above the 3.5-metre contour, the western running from Phetchaburi through Ratchaburi to Suphanburi. David K. Wyatt, who reports the survey, reads the rows as the fringes of a plain then largely under water rather than as a shoreline. Ratchaburi is the middle town of that row. One of the inscribed silver medallions bearing the name Dvāravatī was found at Khu Bua and is now in the Ratchaburi National Museum, and further medallions are recorded from the province. Nicolas Revire also points to an early devotional image of Śiva or Viṣṇu from Ratchaburi, and another from Kanchanaburi, as evidence against the view that the western half of the plain was exclusively Buddhist.
Wyatt also named Ratburi as one of three places, with Nakhon Chai Si and Suphan Buri, in which the polity Chinese records of about 1200 call Chen Li Fu might be sought; he argued from O. W. Wolters's finding that it held both a port and an inland capital, from the same shoreline reconstruction, and from Wolters's note that early Chinese navigators rarely called on the eastern coast of the Bay of Bangkok. Other scholars place the polity at Sankhaburi in Chai Nat province instead.
Supitchar Jindawattanaphum describes stucco figures from Khu Bua that she reads as warriors and guards. One group shows two men standing together, each clasping a sword whose hilt ends in a ring. Two others show a prisoner questioned before a figure she takes for an official by his dress, and a guard kicking a prisoner, the second of them from Chedi no. 10. She reports the group in the Bangkok National Museum.
Excavation at Wat Mahathat Worawihan in the provincial town produced fragments of lustre ware, an earthenware glazed opaque white inside and out and painted on both faces before a second firing. It was an expensive import, made at Basra in Iraq. Of the Dvaravati glass beads analysed from Khu Bua, several are of a Middle Eastern plant-ash soda-lime composition, and one is of a high-alumina plant-ash glass whose source Saritpong Khunsong leaves open, suggesting Pakistan with a question mark. Laure Dussubieux and Bernard Gratuze report glass from Chom Bueng in a survey of compositions across Southeast Asia. In the middle of their three periods the mineral soda-alumina glass they label m-Na-Al 3 all but disappears from the region, and Chom Bueng is the one site where it persists.
Songsiri places the province at the inland end of the routes that supplied the early towns of the western plain. They ran from the coast and the Tenasserim range by the Mae Klong and the Phachi, to the tin of Suan Phueng, Thung Kha and Chom Bueng, and to the lead worked between the Khwae Noi and the Khwae Yai. Lawa highlanders collected aromatic wood, horn, hide, beeswax and stream minerals for the middlemen. At Khok Phrik (), on the Maenam Om canal and continuous with the moated town of Khu Bua, a large stoneware jar of the same kind was found.
Later history The town stands on the banks of the Mae Klong River.
Rama I held the post of royal yokkrabat of Ratchaburi in the late Ayutthaya period.
In the late Ayutthaya period and early Rattanakosin period Ratchaburi was a frontier town and the scene of repeated fighting. Rama I led troops against the Burmese there several times, most importantly in the Burmese–Siamese War (1785–1786).
In 1817 Rama II ordered a new city wall built on the left bank of the Mae Klong River, where the town has stood since. In 1894, under Rama V, the administration was reorganised and neighbouring towns were grouped together. Ratchaburi, Kanchanaburi, Samut Songkhram, Phetchaburi, Pran Buri and Prachuap Khiri Khan were combined as Ratchaburi county.
Demographics Hill tribes, mostly Karen living near the Myanmar border, make up about one percent of the population. Some Mon, Lawa, Lao, Chinese and Khmer minorities live in the province. Most Mon live in the upper part of the province like Ban Pong and Photharam districts, and tend to live along the river.
Ratchaburi is 98.3 percent Buddhist.
Symbols The provincial seal shows the royal sword above the royal sandals on a phan, for the royal sense of the province's name. The provincial slogan is "Beautiful women of Photharam. Exquisite women of Ban Pong. City of dragon jars. Nang Yai of Wat Khanon. Sensational caves. Damnoen (Saduak) floating market. Amazing millions of bats. The area of good taste Jullien's golden carp." The provincial flower is the Pink Shower Tree (Cassia bakeriana), and the provincial tree is Wrightia pubescens. Jullien's golden carp (Probarbus jullieni) is the provincial fish, same as neighbouring province Kanchanaburi, that has good taste and flourished in the Mae Klong River in the past, but is now critically endangered.
Transportation Rail The main railway station in Ratchaburi is Ratchaburi railway station.
Health
Public Ratchaburi Hospital is the main and largest hospital of the province, classified as a regional hospital by the Ministry of Public Health. In the lower tier, three general hospitals are located in Ratchaburi: Ban Pong Hospital, Photharam Hospital and Damnoen Saduak Hospital. The remaining six districts are served by community hospitals.
Administrative divisions
Provincial government The province is divided into 10 districts (amphoes).Ratchaburi is divided into "10 districts", Retrieved 4 Nov 2013, from http://www.encyclopediathai.org/sunthai/center/ratburi/ratburi.htm The districts are further subdivided into 104 sub-districts (tambons) and 935 villages (mubans). Mueang Ratchaburi Chom Bueng Suan Phueng Damnoen Saduak Ban PongBang Phae Photharam Pak Tho Wat Phleng Ban Kha
Local government As of 26 November 2019 there are: one Ratchaburi Provincial Administration Organisation () and 34 municipal (thesaban) areas in the province. Ratchaburi, Ban Pong, Tha Pha and Photharam have town (thesaban mueang) status. Further 30 subdistrict municipalities (thesaban tambon). The non-municipal areas are administered by 77 Subdistrict Administrative Organisations - SAO (ongkan borihan suan tambon).
Human achievement index 2022 Health Education Employment Income 36 34 14 26 Housing Family Transport Participation 57 41 22 29 Province Ratchaburi, with an HAI 2022 value of 0.6577 is "somewhat high", occupies place 17 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. National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) has taken over this task since 2017. RankClassification 1 - 13"high"14 - 29"somewhat high"30 - 45"average"46 - 61"somewhat low"62 - 77"low" Map with provinces and HAI 2022 rankings
Gallery
References
External links
Ratchaburi Thai Only English website of province Ratchaburi Samanachan