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Tourist Attraction / Historical sites / Historical park / Sukhothai

City walls and gates

Three Thousand Four Hundred Fathoms

The wise wisdom of the Sukhothai ancestors demonstrates the construction of the wall that surrounded the ancient Sukhothai city. The inscription of King Ramkhamhaeng the Great indicated that "Around this city of Sukhothai reaches to three thousand four hundred fathoms." and "This city of Sukhothai has four gates exceeding great." When considering the condition of the ancient city Sukhothai wall that remains to discover, it matched each other.
It assumed that originally the Sukhothai city walls had only one layer inside. The two layers outside were built later. There are excavations of Chinese wares having the same age as the early Ayutthaya period in the outer city wall. It supports this idea very well assuming that the wall must be three layers separating by the moat according to the principle of irrigation focusing on drainage more than anything else

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Sukhothai City Planning has a rectangular wall, and there are city gates in the middle of the four sides. The north is "San Luang Gate", and the south is "Namo Gate”. There are still traces of the fortress near the entrance, especially the Pratu Namo. There is the building assuming it is the small temple blocking the gate and built the wall surrounding it. It is believed that the consequence of the wall's extension to another two layers causing the temple to be a part of the fortress. The east is "Kamphaeng Hak Gate", and the west side is "Or Gate". These gates' names are not the ancient name, and they are the names using by the villagers.
The water from the reservoir calling "Seedpong" in the mountains behind the Sukhothai city would be passed through Sao Ho canal flowing into the Sukhothai moat at the corner of the wall on the southwest releasing the waterway to ancient ponds. After that, it drains the water from the city in Kamphaeng Hak Gate's area which is near the Mae Ramphan canal. According to the efficient water management system, Sukhothai city can prosper for hundreds of years.