This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Thailand gathers two former and current Thai capitals, together preserving one of Southeast Asia's densest concentrations of Theravada Buddhist temple building across four centuries.
Ayutthaya was capital of the Siamese kingdom of the same name for over four centuries, from 1350 until its destruction by the Burmese army in 1767, and its ruins preserve the remains of hundreds of temple complexes across the city's island site at the confluence of three rivers. Wat Mahathat, one of its principal temples, is known internationally for a sandstone Buddha head entangled in the roots of a banyan tree that grew up around it after the temple's destruction, an image widely reproduced as a symbol of the old capital's fall. At its height Ayutthaya was among the largest and wealthiest cities in the world, an international trading port hosting merchant communities and diplomatic missions from as far as Persia, Japan, the Dutch Republic and France, alongside a royal court that patronized Theravada Buddhist temple building on a scale matched by few other capitals of the period.
Bangkok became the Thai capital in 1782, and the Emerald Buddha was installed in Wat Phra Kaew inside the royal palace, where the king changes the image's seasonal robes. The city is the administrative center of the Thai sangha, whose supreme patriarch presides from it, and its several hundred temples support the daily almsround and the widespread practice of temporary ordination; Wat Pho and Wat Arun are among its best known monastic complexes.