The moat loop
Hartmann Linge · CC BY-SA 4.0ถนนรอบคูเมือง
The pair of one-way roads on the two banks of the moat: the outer bank runs clockwise, the inner counter-clockwise, so that the square is a…
Roads of Chiang Mai
The square of 1296, four rings around it, 6,934 km of road between, and what each one did to the city. Counted from the map, dated from the record.
1296the square
4rings
6,934km of road, counted
31,668intersections
3,733named sois
81counting stations
Start with the water
Hartmann Linge · CC BY-SA 4.0A square drawn in 1296, and every road since has had to deal with it
6.54 km of moat, five gates, four corners, two one-way loops. The old city is the ruler everything on this site is measured against.
The old city, measuredThe map
Counted for this site
Unknown author · Public domain0.67grid score, inside the moat (1 = perfect grid)
The oldest neighbourhood is the best connected
Grid score inside the moat 0.67, outer ring 0.07. Intersections per km²: 135 inside, 58 out at the third ring. Dead ends: 14% of lane ends inside, 35% out there.
What a road does to an old cityStart here
Ring 1, the Superhighway ring
This Photo was taken by Supanut Arunoprayote. Feel free to use any of my images, but please mention me as the author and may send me a message. (สามารถใช้ภาพได้อิสระ แต่กรุณาใส่เครดิตผู้ถ่ายและอาจส่ · CC BY 4.0วงแหวนรอบที่ 1
The ring about 3 km out: the last ten kilometres of Route 11, the Superhighway, on the north and east; Mahidol Road, Route 1141, on the south…
Ring 2, the 700 Years Road
This Photo was taken by Supanut Arunoprayote. Feel free to use any of my images, but please mention me as the author and may send me a message. (สามารถใช้ภาพได้อิสระ แต่กรุณาใส่เครดิตผู้ถ่ายและอาจส่ · CC BY 4.0วงแหวนรอบกลาง — ถนนสมโภชเชียงใหม่ 700 ปี
The middle ring, about 5 km out, named for the city's 700th anniversary of 1996. Laid out in the first comprehensive plan of 1984 and fixed by…
Ring 3, Route 121
Christophe95 · CC BY-SA 4.0วงแหวนรอบนอก — ทางหลวง 121
The outer ring, about 9 km out: a 52.957 km closed loop through Hang Dong, Saraphi, San Kamphaeng, Doi Saket, San Sai and Mae Rim, crossing the Ping…
The hom
Daibo Taku · CC BY 3.0ฮ่อม
The lanes between houses: residential streets, living streets and service lanes in OpenStreetMap's terms; hom in Kam Mueang, soi on the postal…
Tha Phae Road
Caspar · CC BY-SA 2.5ถนนท่าแพ
From the Nawarat Bridge past Wat Upakut to Tha Phae Gate, about a kilometre, on the east–west axis laid out at the founding. The land outside the…
Nimmanhaemin Road
Setawut · CC BY 4.0ถนนนิมมานเหมินท์
1.327 km between Huay Kaew and Suthep roads, on the edge of the land Ki and Kim Ho Nimmanhaemin gave for the university in 1963. It was later…
Si Wichai Road, the road up Doi Suthep
Jakub Hałun · CC BY-SA 4.0ถนนศรีวิชัย
The upper half of Route 1004, from the Kruba Srivichai monument at the foot of the mountain to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. Ground broken 9 November…
The count
Love Krittaya · Public domain121,403 vehicles a day on Mahidol Road
The highway department counts at 81 stations in the province and leaves the motorcycle out of the headline. Deaths: 558 in 2024, four in five on a motorcycle.
TrafficWhat this holds
Roads 13
The named streets of the city, from Tha Phae to the airport road. What each is for, what it was before, and what it carries.
Rings 5
The moat loop and the three ring roads around it. Each one a decision about where the city ends.
Lanes and alleys 3
The hom and the soi. Where the city is lived rather than driven through.
Gates and corners 10
Five gates, four corners. Where the roads of 1296 still meet the roads of now.
Junctions 9
The named intersections, underpasses and flyovers. Each one a place the city argued about.
Bridges 4
Every road crossing of the Ping, counted from the map, and the ones with a story.
Highways out 11
The numbered roads to Lampang, Lamphun, Chiang Rai, Mae Hong Son, Fang and Bangkok.
Plans 10
What is proposed, funded, under construction, or quietly shelved. Status and date on each.
Eras 8
Seven chapters of road-building, 1296 to now, and what each one did to the city.
Old maps 17
What the city looked like on paper, 1693 to 1959, and what each sheet shows about the roads that were there.
Measurements 10
What the network shows when it is counted: grid, dead ends, block length, and where the rings cut.
Traffic 14
Counts, registrations, deaths, and the songthaew. Each with its year and its source.
Words 15
The road words of Kam Mueang, the northern speech: hom, khua, chaeng, kat. Script, sound, root.
Stories 7
The long reads: what a road does to an old city, why the moat runs one way, what the trees on the Lamphun road are for.
People 7
The king who drew the square, the monk who built the mountain road, the family that gave a street its name.
Places 10
The moat, the river, the mountain, the airport, the station: the things the roads go around.
The exception
FredTC · CC BY-SA 4.0A thousand trees, saved by a bypass
The yang-na on the Lamphun road were planted in 1882 for an emperor's commissioner. They are alive because the Superhighway took the Bangkok traffic off them in 1969.
The trees1935
Kimtuy · CC BY-SA 4.011.53km
Eleven and a half kilometres up a mountain, by hand, in five months and twenty-two days
The only road in the catalogue built by a congregation. Sixty-seven metres of mountain road a day.
The monk's road5 October 2024
Photography Section, Public Relations Department / Thailand Illustrated · Public domain5.30 m at noon, and the busiest road in the north under water
The founders built a kilometre from the bank because of exactly this. The square stayed dry.
The flood, as a list of roadsOn paper
James McCarthy (1853–1919) · Public domain1693the oldest sheet
Sixteen sheets, 1693 to 1959, at the size they can be read at
The 1931 city map labels the moat KOO VIENG CANAL and names a gate after a short bridge. The 1945 sheet was compiled from air photographs taken that March.
The old maps