History
47 km east of Udon Thani is Thailand's premier Bronze Age excavation at Ban Chiang, the world-renowned archaeological site.
Although there are few attractions in the city for most travellers, there are a few interesting Buddhist temples. Within a few kilometers of Udon Thani is Wat Pa Baan That, which was home for many years to Forest Meditation monk Luangta Maha Bua, known for his philanthropic endeavors such as accumulating gold and giving it to the National Treasury to benefit Thailand's citizens during the economic crisis of the late 1990s. It is said that over the course of his tenure at this temple over $550 million (USD) was collected for the benefit of Thai citizens, be it directly or via building of hospitals and clinics. Ajahn Maha Bua died in January 2011.
The city became a bustling support center for the nearby Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base during the Vietnam War and so retains reminders of that time, with bars coffee shops and hotels.
In the mid-1900s, about 46,700 Vietnamese war refugees immigrated to Udon Thani. Their descendants still reside in Udon Thani and communicate with each other in Vietnamese. Today, Udon Thani has the largest Vietnamese community in all of Thailand.
It also became the site of a Voice of America relay station alleged to have been a CIA black site.
Asia Pacific Resources, a wholly owned subsidiary of Italian-Thai Development PLC, owns the concession to the Udon Thani potash mines and plans to develop them. According to press reports, Udon Thani has enough potash to mine two million tonnes per year for 25 years. Potash is one of the main components in fertilizer.
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“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)