Lanna

Lanna, the land of a million rice fields, was the Thai kingdom of the north, founded in 1292 by Mangrai of Ngoenyang with Chiang Mai as its royal city. It grew from the mountain valleys into the power of the fifteenth century, strong enough under Tilokaraj to meet Ayutthaya on equal terms, and filled Chiang Mai with monasteries whose chronicles still carry the northern memory. The Burmese Toungoo dynasty broke it in 1558, and for two centuries Lanna lay as the bone between Burmese and Siamese armies. In 1774 Siam wrested Chiang Mai back from Burma and set Kawila of Lampang over the country; he was crowned king of Chiang Mai in 1802 as a Siamese vassal. The chronicles count the kingdom's effective end to the Siamese recovery of 1774-1775. Lanna's script, its Theravada councils and its walled city survive as the cultural signature of northern Thailand, formally annexed by Siam in 1892. The northern chronicles preserve the Lanna lineage reign by reign to this day.