Lampang is the second city of the Khon Muang or Northern Thai people, being - after Chiang Mai - the largest, richest and most populous city of the north. Isolated from Lamphun and Chiang Mai to the west by the Doi Khun Tan mountains, from Phayao to the east by the massive bulk of Doi Bussaracum, and from Phrae to the south-east by the Doi Khun Kiat range, the valley of Lampang is broad and fertile.

As a consequence, Lampang - valley, city and people - has developed a distinctive style and culture of its own. Still Northern, to be sure, but the regional accent is different to that of Chiang Mai, the people do not decorate their houses with the distinctive crossed galae used so widely in the northern capital, and Burmese cultural influence was strong here much more recently than in Chiang Mai...

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