Wiang Lo Ancient Remains

Wiang Lo is a circular, double-moated ancient city in Chun district — not a single ruin but an entire abandoned settlement, with more than 50 recorded temple foundations scattered inside its walls. Admission is free.

The Ing River runs through the old city, splitting it into two halves, and the moats and earthwork ramparts that once defended it are still traceable on the ground. Historians place Wiang Lo on an old overland route linking Chiang Saen, Chiang Khong, Phayao and Lan Chang (in present-day Laos) — a trade and travel corridor rather than an isolated village. Estimates of the city’s age vary by source: some put it at around 900 years old, while stone inscriptions and sandstone Buddha images recovered from within the walls suggest occupation stretching back 1,500-1,600 years, into the Dvaravati-Hariphunchai period. The Fine Arts Department’s 7th Regional Office (based in Nan) has documented roughly ten excavated sites inside the city walls and another forty significant ruins outside them, working from eight numbered excavation pits.

What you’ll actually walk among are brick and laterite foundations — wall bases, temple platforms, the odd standing fragment — rather than intact structures. Wat Sri Ping Mueang, inside the old walls, is the most substantial and most-referenced of the ruin complexes. Information is thin on the ground itself; this is a working archaeological zone rather than a curated heritage park, so most of the interpretive detail lives in Fine Arts Department reports rather than on-site signage.

Watch out: There’s little shade anywhere on the site, and the ground is uneven brickwork and grass rather than paved paths — wear proper shoes, not sandals.

Because this is an active research site rather than a restored park, what you see changes over time — some foundations visible in older photographs are now backfilled for protection, while new excavation trenches open elsewhere as the Fine Arts Department works through the roughly forty ruins recorded outside the main walls. That ongoing-dig character is part of the appeal for visitors specifically interested in archaeology rather than a polished heritage-park experience, but it also means asking locally about current excavation activity before visiting is worthwhile if you want to see active fieldwork rather than just foundations.

Weekday mornings or late afternoons are the best times to visit, both for temperature and because the site office (staffed Monday to Friday) can point you toward the more legible foundations if you ask. The ruins sit in Lo subdistrict, roughly 30-40 minutes north of Phayao town by car or motorbike, with informal parking near the main cluster of foundations.