Fang

Mueang Fang was built in 641 by King Lawa Changkarat following the Yonok Chronicle. It was an important city in the Kok River Basin. King Mengrai (1259 - 1347) stayed in Fang around 1278, after having built Chiang Rai in 1263 and having invested towns in the Kok and Mekong river basins. Mueang Fang was used as a stronghold in order to attack Chiang Khong, Thoeng and later the Mon Kingdom of Hariphunchai (Lamphun) in 1292. The city played a major role in politics and administration throughout the Lan Na era. It was a strategical town and a logistic source.
Mueang Fang is estimated by the archaeologists of the 7th Regional Office of the Fine Arts Department to have been 1100 meters wide by 1300 meters wide. The remains of a part of the old city walls (660 m) and moat were recently excavated (2017). The wall was made of soil, while the side facing the town was covered with bricks. The old city moat was narrow in the north and got wider in the south, indicating that the water ran north to south. It is estimated to have been 30 to 40 meters wide.
In 1910, Mueang Fang was made part of Chiang Rai Province and named Mueang Fang district. In 1925 it was reassigned to Chiang Mai Province. In 1938 the word "Mueang" was dropped from the name, which was then reserved for capital districts of the provinces.
The landscape of Mueang Fang looked like the seed of a fang tree, a tree famous for dying and which the Portuguese called Sapan (Caesalpinia sappan) following de La Loubere; hence where it got its name from.
Mueang Fang is mentioned in de La Loubere's "A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam" as the location where a tooth of the Buddha was kept and a large number of Siamese, Peguan, and Lao pilgrims visited the area; because of the tooth, some people called it Mueang Fan or City of the Tooth. [Sources: de La Loubère - A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam (2 Tomes) - London, 1693 - Edited by John Villiers - White Lotus, Bangkok, 1986 / Tracing the history of Fang ancient city - Bangkok Post - 22 Jun 2017 - Pichaya Svasti / Wikipedia]

Ayutthaya Historical Research