'Jamahey is a very faire and great towne, with fair houses of stone, well peopled, the streetes are very large, the men very well set and strong... The women bee much fairer than those of Pegu'...

Ralph Fitch, Account of Chiang Mai (1586-87).

The walled and moated city of Chiang Mai, sheltered amid the valleys and mountains of northern Thailand, is widely acknowledged as that country's second city, at least in terms of culture if not of numbers. Yet until fairly recently it was not part of historic Siam at all, but rather the capital of a distinct and separate Lan Na state, the 'Kingdom of a Million Rice Fields'. Founded by King Mangrai in 1296, it remained independent until 1558 when it became a tributary of neighbouring Burma, and then a tributary of Siam 1775. Final union with Siam, as a fully integrated part of the Kingdom of Thailand, did not occur until 1932. As a consequence northern Thailand retains a considerable degree of cultural distinctiveness, with its own language, food, dress and style.

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