---
node: grand_palace
type: art
slug: grand_palace
title: "Grand Palace"
lead: "The Grand Palace is a walled royal complex in Bangkok, founded in 1782 when Rama I moved the Siamese capital to Rattanakosin Island. Residence of the kings until 1925, it remains the setting for state ceremonies."
published: 2026-07-11
updated: 2026-08-27
change: "Rewrote the opening body section so that it no longer restates the page's own lead."
previous_hash: "2975819d3506d4b6b4803454f8ce007605849303924e58344bd948e49f1cb43e"
requester: internal
reason: "The section repeated the lead, so the first thing under the first heading was text the reader had already read in the search result."
image_file: grand_palace.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grand_Palace_Bangkok,_Thailand.jpg"
image_author: "Andy Marchand"
image_license: "CC BY-SA 3.0"
---

## Overview

The walls enclose about 218,000 square metres and more than a hundred buildings, laid out in three courts. The outer court held the government offices of a kingdom that was run from inside a palace; the middle court holds the throne halls; and the inner court was the women's quarters, a walled town of its own with its own market and its own guards, into which no man but the king could go. Rama I built it in wood salvaged and shipped downriver from Ayutthaya, the capital the Burmese had burned fifteen years before.

## Description

Within its walls stands the royal chapel Wat Phra Kaew, which houses the Emerald Buddha, the palladium of the kingdom. The largest of the throne halls is the Chakri Maha Prasat of 1882, built under King Chulalongkorn and famous for joining a European classical body to Thai spired roofs.

## History and legacy

Kings ceased to reside in the palace after 1925, but royal and state ceremonies are still held within its walls. Today it is regarded as Thailand's foremost monument and ranks among Bangkok's most visited sites.

**This page was corrected.** Rewrote the opening body section so that it no longer restates the page's own lead.

**Why.** The section repeated the lead, so the first thing under the first heading was text the reader had already read in the search result.

**Who asked.** The Media Division itself.