Damnoen Saduak Canal

Khlong Damnoen Saduak linked the Tha Jin River at Bang Yang to the Mae Klong River at Bang Nok Kwang. The 21 Km-long canal was dug between 1860 and 1868. It was financed primarily by sugar tax revenues originally intended for the construction of a royal palace at Phetchaburi. The digging of this canal framed in the attractive prices offered in world sugar markets. Sugar was identified by the Bowring Treaty of 1855 as an export product with enormous potential. Between 1857 and 1868, four new canals connecting one river to another, initiated and financed primarily by royalty, opened the western Central Plains to sugar-cane cultivation. [Ref: The Chao Phya, River in Transition - Steve Van Beek (1995) - page 121-2.]

The chronicle reads: On Monday, the fourth day of the waxing moon of the seventh month [ 25 May 1868 A.D.], the Minister of Military Affairs went to the opening of the newly excavated canal at Bang Nok Khwaek. Excavation of this canal was started at the end of the Year of the Tiger, eight of the decade [A.D. 1866/7 ], westward from the east bank of the Bang Yang river in Nakhon Chaisi Province to the Bang Nok Khwaek canal in Ratchaburi Province. It is 840 sen [ 33.6 km] long, 6 wa [12m ] wide and 6 sok [3m] deep. Wages for excavation and removing tree stumps amounted to 1,400 chang [ 112,000 baht ], of which 1,000 chang [ 80,000 baht ] was appropriated from the Minister of Military Affairs and 400 chang [ 32,000 baht] granted by the King. The project was carried out under direction of Somdet Chao Phraya Si Suriyawong (Chuang Bunnag), who had held the high official position of Minister of Military Affairs. A source mentions that he acquired large areas of unclaimed land along the canal as collateral for his heavy investment. In fact, this heavy investment by Sisuriyawong, as Rama V wrote in a later letter, was appropriated from the balance of the sugar tax revenue which had been put in Sisuriyawong's charge for construction of a palace at Phetchaburi. Si Suriyawong took full advantage of the project, distributing lands along the canal to his wives, relatives and dependants, and selling it to others for cultivation. Large-scale landholding was thus established here as along the Maha Sawat canal. The Damnoen Saduak canal, linking fortified towns at the river mouths in place of the existing Sunak Hon channel, was intended to develop water transportation between the Tha Chin and Mae Klong rivers. Rice produced in the Ratchaburi area, and fruit and vegetables from the Chinese plantations on the natural levees of the Mae Klong river, could reach Tha Chin river by this new straight canal rather than by the existing coastal channels, which were winding and troublesome to navigate. For transport to the capital, this canal must be considered in conjunction with the Phasi Charoen canal. [Reference: Tanabe, Shigeharu - Historical Geography Of Canal System In Chao Phraya River Delta - Journal of the Siam Society (JSS) 65 - page 62]

Ayutthaya Historical Research