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Province

Bangkok (Pom Prap Sattru Phai district)

Pom Prap Sattru Phai lies in central Bangkok, just east of Rattanakosin Island, between Khlong Rop Krung, the old city moat, and Khlong Phadung Krung Kasem, bordering Phra Nakhon and Samphanthawong. The district takes its name from a fort built along the latter canal, which was dug during the reign of King Mongkut (Rama IV) in the early 1850s to extend the capital’s defences. The fort itself has gone, yet the older fabric survives in its shophouse streets, in artisan communities such as Ban Bat, where monks’ alms bowls are still hammered by hand, and in its historic monasteries. Wat Saket, crowned by the artificial hill of the Golden Mount and its chedi, remains the district’s principal landmark.