Thailand
Phra Sumen Fort ranks #7,757 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #18 of the 21 mapped in Thailand. 11 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Bangkok, 3 km away. See how Thailand compares in the castle statistics.
Phra Sumen Fort is a fortress built in the reign of King Rama I. At that time 14 fortresses were built to defend the capital, but as time passed the fortresses lost their necessity and were demolished. Phra Sumen Fort is one of the 2 forts that still remain; the other is Mahakan Fort. The name of Phra Sumen Fort was adopted as the name of Phra Sumen Road.
Phra Sumen Fort, built since the reign of King Rama I, is handsome in appearance and had many practical uses: it has a rampart walk, gun embrasures, a magazine for powder and shot, and various weapons and ordnance, but it naturally fell into decay, until in 1981 the Fine Arts Department repaired and restored it according to its original form from photographs of the reign of King Rama V, so that it looks stately as before, and also improved the surrounding area into a public park, giving it the name "Santi Chai Prakan Park", with a pavilion named "Phra Thinang Santi Chai Prakan".
The community around Phra Sumen Fort is the Phra Athit Road community, which is strong in participation just like the Mahakan Fort community, but has greater diversity.
In the reign of King Rama I, in 1783, 10,000 Khmer people came to dig a canal linking Khlong Bang Lamphu with Khlong Ong Ang, until they joined together and formed the canal around the city.
Machine-translated from “ป้อมพระสุเมรุ” on the Thai Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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