History

During the Ayutthaya period, Mae Hong Son was a baffle state between two large kingdoms, Lanna (Chiang Mai) and Burma. The head of Chiang Mai first came to Mae Hong Son in order to establish a new port at Pai and Khun Yuam. In 1831, the Chiang Mai’s fifth regulator named “King Mahotaraprathet” assigned a governor who was one of his aide-de-camps named “Kaew Ma” to lead his troops with elephants and their mahouts to survey the area around western border, as well as to hunt for more elephants and train them for working in Chiang Mai. He found a small village at Pai River valley which was the fine land to settle on. He then started clearing the land and appointed an indigenous Tai Yai named “Phaga Mong” to rule the new founded village, also named the village as “Pong Mu”, sometimes called “Pang Mu”.

Eventually, both Kaew Ma and Phaga Mong made the rounds of trekking to the south and caught many elephants. There, they also discovered a perfect location to leash their caught elephants. They started clearing that land to build the elephant training school and appointed Phaga Mong’s son-in-law named “Saen Gom” to be the village’s ruler. This village was later titled “Mae Hong Son”, which means the village with a channel to train elephants.

In 1856, there was a civil war in Burma causing many cross-border migrations of Burmese and Tai Yai into Mae Hong Son, Pang Mu, Pai, and Khun Yuam. Since then, Mae Hong Son gradually became a larger community. In 1874, Chao Inthavitchayanon, the new ruler of Chiang Mai, reestablished Mae Hong Son as a new port of Chiang Mai, meanwhile he also appointed “Chan Kalae”, the governor of Khun Yuam, to be Mae Hong Son’s first official ruler. He was given the royal name as “Phya Singhanat Racha”, Mae Hong Son advanced greatly under his governance.

In 1900, King Rama V of Thailand combined the ports and villages in Mae Hong Son, Khun Yuam, Pai, and Mai Sariang, and called them the Northwestern province. Mae Hong Son housed the provincial office. In 1933, Mae Hong Son was elevated to be a province in its own right. King Rama V was pleased to appoint “Phra Sorasurat” to be the first governor of Mae Hong Son, who reported directly to Thai Ministry of Interior from then on.

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