Thailand history timeline

Ban Chiang culture

c. 2000 BCE to 200 CE. about 2,199 years. Thailand and Laos, Southeast Asia.

A burial site in north-east Thailand used until about 200 CE, known for red-painted pottery. Its first settlement (about 2100 or 1500 BCE) and first bronze (about 2000 or 1000 BCE) are disputed. Its ancient DNA matches a lineage linked to the spread of Austroasiatic languages.

Dvaravati

c. 600 to 1050 CE. about 450 years. Thailand and Laos, Southeast Asia.

A Mon Buddhist culture of moated towns such as U Thong and Nakhon Pathom in central Thailand, named from coins inscribed Sri Dvaravati. Chinese pilgrims described it as a Buddhist kingdom in the mid-7th century.

Lavo Kingdom

c. 650 to 1388 CE. about 738 years. capital Lavapura (Lopburi), then Ayodhya. Thailand and Laos, Southeast Asia.

A mandala of the lower Chao Phraya centred on Lavapura (modern Lopburi) from the 7th century, at first part of the Dvaravati world. Its centre moved to Ayodhya in the 1080s, though the two sent separate embassies to China in the late 1200s and may have been distinct states.

Haripunjaya

c. 660 to 1292 CE. about 632 years. capital Lamphun. Thailand and Laos, Southeast Asia.

A Mon kingdom with its capital at Lamphun in northern Thailand. Chronicles credit its founding to Camadevi, a princess from Lavo, but proposed dates run from the 7th to the 12th century. Mangrai of Lan Na captured the city in 1292.

Sukhothai Kingdom

c. 1238 to 1438 CE. about 200 years. capital Sukhothai. Thailand and Laos, Southeast Asia.

Tai chiefs threw off Khmer rule and founded Sukhothai, which under Ram Khamhaeng (about 1279 to 1298) spread Theravada Buddhism and, by tradition, the Thai script. Ayutthaya absorbed it in 1438.

Lan Na

1292 to 1775 CE. about 483 years. capital Chiang Mai. Thailand and Laos, Southeast Asia.

Mangrai founded Chiang Mai in 1296 as the capital of a northern Tai kingdom that hosted a Buddhist council to recompile the Tripitaka in 1477. It became a Burmese vassal in 1558, and in 1775 its chiefs switched their allegiance to Siam.

Ayutthaya Kingdom

1351 to 1767 CE. about 416 years. capital Ayutthaya. Thailand and Laos, Southeast Asia.

Uthong (Ramathibodi I) founded Ayutthaya in 1351, joining four centres of the lower Chao Phraya under one ruler. It attacked Angkor in the 1430s and became a centre of trade with Japanese, Persian and European merchants. Burmese armies destroyed it in 1767.

Thonburi Kingdom

1767 to 1782 CE. about 15 years. capital Thonburi. Thailand and Laos, Southeast Asia.

Taksin, a general of part-Chinese descent, expelled the Burmese within months of Ayutthaya's fall and reunited Siam. His officers deposed and executed him in 1782.

Rattanakosin Kingdom (Siam)

1782 to 1932 CE. about 150 years. capital Bangkok. Thailand and Laos, Southeast Asia.

Rama I of the Chakri dynasty moved the capital across the river to Bangkok. Mongkut and Chulalongkorn modernised Siam and kept it the only Southeast Asian state never colonised, though it ceded Laos and other lands to France and Britain.

Thailand

1932 CE to the present. about 93 years so far. capital Bangkok. Thailand and Laos, Southeast Asia.

The 1932 revolution made Siam a constitutional monarchy, renamed Thailand in 1939. Since then the army has staged about a dozen successful coups, most recently in 2014.