Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew
The royal compound founded in 1782 on Rattanakosin Island, with the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and a textile museum inside its walls.
The royal compound where Bangkok began as a capital
The Grand Palace is a walled complex of throne halls, residences and a royal temple in the heart of old Bangkok. It has been the official residence of Siamese, and later Thai, kings since 1782, when building began on the orders of Rama I, the first king of the Chakri dynasty. The palace's own site describes it as both a home for the king and the seat of administrative offices, which explains why it reads as a small town of courts rather than a single building. The compound is large: published figures put the walled area at roughly 218,000 square metres, enclosed by four walls. Over the twentieth century the kings moved to other residences, including Dusit Palace, and by 1925 the king, the royal family and the government had all left; government agencies moved out after the 1932 revolution. Today the halls are used for state and royal ceremonies, and every coronation since Rama II has taken place in the Phra Maha Monthien group of halls. Within the same compound stands Wat Phra Kaew, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, begun in 1783. It is technically a royal chapel rather than a monastery, since there are no living quarters for monks. Together with the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles, housed in a building on the palace grounds that opened as a museum in 2003, these are the three things most visitors come for: the halls, the chapel and the museum. The palace publishes its own calendar showing which halls are open on a given date, so it is the page to read before you plan the day around one particular building.
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What to see
The compound divides into the temple precinct, the palace courts and the museums. Not every hall is open to visitors.
Wat Phra Kaew
- The Emerald Buddha: a seated meditating image about 66 cm tall, carved from a green stone usually described as jade and dressed in gold. It was brought from Vientiane in 1779 and installed in the temple in 1785. The palace's site says the figure wears a different costume for each of the three seasons; The king presides over the change of garments, which takes place three times a year.
- Phra Ubosot, the ordination hall that houses the image. Begun in 1783, it is ringed by a low wall, eight boundary-marker shrines and twelve pavilions, with 112 gilded garudas on the outside and murals of Buddhist stories inside.
- Phra Si Rattana Chedi, a bell-shaped stupa built in 1855 to hold relics from Sri Lanka, later covered in gold-coloured tiles imported from Italy.
- Phra Mondop, a library for sacred texts built by Rama I, whose central cabinet holds the Tripitaka in 84,000 chapters.
- A detailed scale model of Angkor Wat, ordered by Rama IV after plans to move a Khmer temple to Bangkok proved impractical; it stands north of the Phra Mondop.
- Giant yaksha and monkey figures from the Ramakien epic holding up the golden Phra Suwannachedi: four monkeys and sixteen giants around each chedi.
The palace halls
- Chakri Maha Prasat, a throne hall completed in 1882 under Rama V, which pairs a European Renaissance-style lower storey with Thai roofs and spires, designed with foreign architects.
- Phra Maha Monthien, the central group of residential and ceremonial halls in the Middle Court. Of this group, only the Amarin Winitchai Throne Hall is open to the public.
- Dusit Maha Prasat, one of two halls raised after a fire in 1789 destroyed an earlier hall; it is the only hall of its group open to the public.
Museums inside the grounds
- The Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles, in the Ratsadakorn-bhibhathana Building on the grounds; the palace's site says it opened in 2003 in a building that had been vacant.
- The Arts of the Kingdom Museum, which the palace's site describes as showing work by artisans from the farming community at the Queen Sirikit Institute, made without models or moulds.
Getting there
The palace sits on Rattanakosin Island, the old royal heart of Bangkok.
Where it is
- The Grand Palace is in Phra Nakhon district on Rattanakosin Island, in the old city on the east bank of the Chao Phraya.
- Wat Pho lies just south of the palace, so the two are naturally seen together; Wat Arun faces them from the opposite bank of the river.
What nobody tells you
The palace is a working royal and state site, not only a monument.
Good to know
- Wat Phra Kaew is called a temple, but it is a royal chapel with no monks living in it, which is why it sits inside the palace walls rather than beside them.
- Several important buildings are ceremonial rather than open: in the Phra Maha Monthien group only one throne hall can be entered, and the Royal Pantheon, Prasat Phra Thep Bidon, is a ceremonial building rather than part of an everyday visit.
- The Emerald Buddha is small, at about 66 cm, and the palace's site says its costume changes with the season.
- The palace's two official English pages have shown different closing times in the past, so use its own calendar for the date you visit rather than a figure from any other site.
Close by
Rattanakosin Island and the Thonburi bank.
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