Chiang Mai, a practical guide

The city

King Mangrai founded Chiang Mai in 1296 as the new capital of the Lanna kingdom, and the old city still keeps his plan: a square roughly a kilometre and a half on each side, inside a moat and the remains of brick walls, with gates on every side. Lanna was an independent kingdom, then a Burmese and later a Siamese dependency, and was fully joined to Thailand only around the turn of the twentieth century, which is why the north has its own language, script, food and calendar.

The province had about 1.8 million registered residents at the end of 2025, the fourth largest in the country, but the city proper is small, and most of the urban area lies outside the municipality. It is the north’s centre for universities, hospitals and government offices, including the immigration office beside the airport.

Districts

• The old city, inside the moat: temples on every street, guesthouses, quiet lanes and the Sunday walking market on Ratchadamnoen Road.
• Nimmanhaemin and Suthep, west of the moat toward the university and the mountain: cafés, condominiums and the busiest expatriate scene.
• Santitham and Chang Phueak, north of the old city: more local, with markets and older apartment blocks.
• The river and the Night Bazaar, east of the moat along the Ping: hotels, the night market on Chang Khlan Road and Warorot market.
• Hang Dong and the south-west: houses with gardens, several international schools and quick access to the airport.
• Mae Rim and San Sai, to the north: more space and greenery, a longer drive into town.

Seasons

Thailand’s meteorologists divide the year into three seasons, and Chiang Mai feels each strongly. The cool season, from about mid-October to mid-February, is dry and clear, with mornings that can be chilly in the city and cold in the hills. The hot season, from mid-February to mid-May, brings afternoons well into the thirties and, for its first half, the smoke. The rainy season, from mid-May to mid-October, turns the hills green, with heavy afternoon storms and occasional floods along the Ping.

The burning season and air quality

Each year from about February to April, fires in fields and forests across northern Thailand and its neighbours fill the valley with smoke, and fine dust, PM2.5, reaches levels that rank among the worst in the world. March and early April are usually the worst months; the air clears quickly once the rains begin in May. Thailand’s 24-hour standard for PM2.5 has been 37.5 micrograms per cubic metre since June 2023, and in the smoky months readings in Chiang Mai often run at several times that.

• Check the readings on the Pollution Control Department’s Air4Thai site or app, which carries the official monitoring stations.
• Plan for it if you live here: an air purifier for the bedroom, well-fitting N95 or equivalent masks, and, for many families, a trip away in March.
• Ask a doctor before the season if you or your children have asthma, a heart condition or another lung condition.
• Burning is banned by the province for several months each year, though enforcement is hard in the forests and across the borders.

Getting around

• From the airport, on the city’s south-western edge, airport buses run on line A1 to Nimman, Huay Kaew and the moat and on line A2 to the Night Bazaar and Chang Khlan, for 40 baht; a third line, A3, costs 60 baht.
• By train from Bangkok, the overnight sleeper leaves Krung Thep Aphiwat station in the evening and arrives the next morning, a journey of 744 kilometres and about twelve and a half hours; book sleeper berths early.
• Red songthaews (รถแดง, rot daeng), converted pick-ups with two benches, work as shared taxis: wave one down, say where you are going and agree the fare before you get in.
• Ride-hailing apps work across the city and are the easiest way to get a car or a motorbike taxi at a known price.
• Motorbikes are how many residents get about. Ride only with a valid licence, Thai or international, wear a helmet, and remember the police check both; a Thai licence needs a residence certificate.

Temples and Doi Suthep

The old city alone has dozens of temples. Wat Phra Singh holds one of the most revered Buddha images of the north; Wat Chedi Luang has the ruins of a great chedi damaged by an earthquake in the sixteenth century and the city’s guardian pillar; Wat Suan Dok, west of the moat, has the white chedis of Chiang Mai’s royal family; and Wat Umong, in the forest at the foot of the mountain, has tunnels where monks once meditated.

Above them all stands Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, at about a thousand metres on the mountain west of the city. Legend says a white elephant carrying a relic of the Buddha climbed the mountain in the late fourteenth century, trumpeted three times and died, and the temple was built where it fell. You reach it by road and then a naga staircase of about three hundred steps, or a funicular. The mountain itself is Doi Suthep–Pui National Park, whose highest point, Doi Pui, is 1,685 metres. Dress as for any temple, and go early in the morning to beat the heat and the crowds. For the highest mountain in the country, see Doi Inthanon.

Costs

Chiang Mai is cheaper than Bangkok for most things, and rents fall the further you live from Nimman and the old city. Prices change quickly, so take any figure you find online as a guide only, and ask people who live here. A few prices are published by the people who set them: the airport bus is 40 baht; a foreign adult pays 300 baht to enter Doi Inthanon National Park; and international school tuition in the city runs from about 300,000 to 800,000 baht a year, as the schools guide shows.

Sources

Checked 11 October 2026 against the sources below. Rules, fees and dates change, sometimes at short notice: confirm with the operator or office concerned before you rely on them.

• Chiang Mai International Airport: airport bus lines and fares, Airports of Thailand
• Timetables, Bangkok to Chiang Mai, State Railway of Thailand
• The new PM2.5 standards (37.5 µg/m³ over 24 hours from 1 June 2023), Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning
• Air4Thai: official air quality readings, Pollution Control Department
• Hazy skies in a growing city: Chiang Mai’s smoke season, NASA Earth Observatory
• Statistical Yearbook: Thailand’s seasons, National Statistical Office
• Doi Suthep–Pui National Park, Department of National Parks
• Chiang Mai and Lamphun: Doi Suthep and the naga staircase, Tourism Authority of Thailand
• Registered population at the end of 2025, by province, Khaosod English, from Department of Provincial Administration figures