Kingdom of Chiangmai

Nakhon Chiang Mai, usually called the Kingdom of Chiangmai in English, was the Siamese tributary state that succeeded the old Lanna kingdom in the north of modern Thailand. Lanna had been under Burmese rule since 1558, and in 1775 Siamese armies under Taksin, aided by the local leaders Kawila and Phaya Chaban, captured Chiang Mai and drove out the Burmese governor. Burmese invasions forced the abandonment of the city for two decades, and Kawila, based at Lampang, led the defence of the north until Chiang Mai was reoccupied and restored in 1797. In December 1802 Rama I appointed Kawila tributary king of Chiang Mai, founding the Chet Ton dynasty; two years later allied Siamese and Lanna forces captured Chiang Saen, the last Burmese stronghold in the region. The rulers of Chiang Mai enjoyed wide autonomy, with their own officials, courts and taxes, while acknowledging Bangkok's suzerainty and supplying troops. Kawila and his successors also campaigned into Kengtung and Sipsong Panna to resettle captured populations and rebuild the depopulated north. In the later nineteenth century teak revenues and British consular pressure drew Lanna into Siam's modern administrative system; in 1899 the kingdom was incorporated into the new Monthon Phayap, ending its separate political existence, though the Chiang Mai ruling house survived as a local aristocracy.