Chatuchak Park

What it is

Chatuchak Park is the public park on the west side of Kamphaeng Phet 3 Road in Chatuchak district, the green half of the block whose other half is the weekend market. It covers 0.304 square kilometres and was laid out in 1975 on land that had belonged to the State Railway of Thailand, dedicated to King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the occasion of his fourth cycle, his forty-eighth birthday, on 5 December 1975. The king granted the name: chatuchak means four cycles, and the district around it took its name from the park rather than the other way about. Three more parks were added later — Queen Sirikit Park, Wachirabenchathat Park and Chak Phupha Su Maha Nathee Park — and they are separated from Chatuchak Park by Kamphaeng Phet 3 Road, which is why the four are often described as one park and experienced as four. Chatuchak Park is the oldest and the most formal of them: mature shade trees, clipped lawns, a lake, and paths laid out for walking rather than for cycling.

Checked 2026-08-25 · Source

What's inside

The park's own signature is the flower clock, the planted dial almost everyone photographs on the way in. Behind it stands the clock tower, built in B.E. 2530 by the Bangkok Market Administration Office together with the Thai-Chinese Merchants Association to mark King Bhumibol Adulyadej's fifth cycle, and it works as the park's meeting point in the way a station clock does. Scattered through the grounds are the ASEAN sculptures, left behind by the second ASEAN sculpture workshop that Thailand hosted from 27 October to 2 December B.E. 2526 with pieces from six countries: Thailand, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. There is a lake with benches around it, open lawn that people actually sit on, and beds turned over to sunflowers and marigolds that are opened for photographs with the elevated railway running behind them. The literature garden is the quiet surprise: trees chosen for the works they appear in, among them pradu from the Khun Chang Khun Phaen recitation, anchan from the Nirat Than Sok verses, and lep mue nang from Inao. So many old trees stand here that the park has a second name, Suan Kraro, the squirrel park, after the hundreds of squirrels that live in them and have long since stopped being afraid of people. For exercise there is the Chaloem Phrakiat 36 Phansa health garden with twelve training stations, outdoor gym equipment, a children's playground and marked walking and running routes. Toilets and parking are on site.

Checked 2026-08-25 · Source

How long to spend

An hour is the honest figure. A single unhurried circuit of the paths, with a stop at the flower clock, a look at the ASEAN sculptures and a few minutes by the lake, fills about that much and leaves the park without the feeling of having been rushed. Cut it to forty minutes if the park is a breather between market stalls, which is what it is for most visitors on a Saturday. Stretch it to two hours if the squirrels, the literature garden labels and a sit on the grass are the point, or if the sunflower beds are open and the camera is out. It is not a destination that needs a half day, and it is next door to three other parks that between them do.

Checked 2026-08-25

Season and crowds

The park is open every day from 04:30 to 22:00, which is a long window and worth using at its ends. Early morning is when the park is at its best and its busiest with locals: joggers on the marked routes, exercise classes on the lawns and the squirrels active before the heat. The middle of the day in Bangkok is hot and bright and the shade trees only do so much, so between roughly eleven and three the park is a place to cross rather than to sit in. Late afternoon into dusk brings the light back and the crowd with it. Weekends are a different park from weekdays because the weekend market next door empties into it — a weekday morning is the version with room in it, a Saturday afternoon is the version with none.

Checked 2026-08-25 · Source

Tickets

Entry to Chatuchak Park is free. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's own parks listing records the park as having no entry charge at all, alongside its hours of 04:30 to 22:00 daily and its address on Kamphaeng Phet 3 Road, and there is no gate, no booth and no ticket for any part of the grounds. Nothing inside is separately ticketed either: the flower clock, the clock tower, the ASEAN sculptures, the literature garden, the health garden with its twelve exercise stations and the playground are all part of the same free park. Parking on site and the public toilets are provided by the administration as park facilities. The neighbouring parks across Kamphaeng Phet 3 Road are separate places with their own arrangements, and the weekend market beside the park is a market, where the stalls charge what stalls charge.

Checked 2026-08-25 · Source

Getting there

Chatuchak Park is one of the easiest green spaces in Bangkok to reach by rail. The BTS stop is Mo Chit and the MRT stop is Chatuchak Park, and both put visitors at the edge of the grounds without a real walk. By bus, the routes that serve it are 3, 8, 26, 27, 28, 29, 34, 38, 39, 44, 63, 90, 96, 104 and 134, with air-conditioned services 3, 138, 509, 510 and 512; a shuttle bus also runs from here to Impact Muang Thong Thani. By car the address is Kamphaeng Phet 3 Road, Chatuchak subdistrict, Chatuchak district, Bangkok 10900, and there is parking on site — though on a market weekend the roads around the block are among the slowest in the city, which is the argument for the train. Bicycles are not allowed inside the park itself, so anyone riding in needs to leave the bicycle at the edge.

Checked 2026-08-25 · Source

What to watch out for

The park posts a list of things that are not allowed, and it is stricter than a visitor might expect from an open lawn. Bicycles are prohibited inside Chatuchak Park — the place to ride is Wachirabenchathat Park across Kamphaeng Phet 3 Road, which is laid out for it. Pets are not accepted, so a dog that would be welcome in some Bangkok parks is not welcome in this one. Smoking is prohibited, so is drinking alcohol, and so is flying a drone. Gambling, indecent behaviour, damaging the trees, and trading or bartering inside the park are all listed as prohibited too, which is worth knowing when the market next door has spilled over. Beyond the rules, the practical hazards are heat and the squirrels. Midday sun here is genuinely punishing and the shade is uneven. The squirrels are unafraid enough to come to a hand, and feeding a wild animal that has learned to expect food from strangers is how it starts biting them.

Checked 2026-08-25 · Source

Photography

Drones are prohibited in the park, so every frame here is taken from the ground. The three reliable subjects are the flower clock, which is the picture most people come away with and is best before the sun is high enough to blow out the planting; the sunflower and marigold beds, which the park opens for photographs and which are deliberately framed so that the elevated railway runs behind the flowers; and the lake, whose benches and far bank give the only wide, uncluttered composition in the park. The ASEAN sculptures suit close, low frames rather than wide ones, since the backdrop behind them is ordinary parkland. The old trees make the light here patchy and contrasty in the middle of the day and soft and even in the first hour after opening at 04:30, which is also the only hour with no people in the shot. Squirrels are the easiest wildlife subject in central Bangkok and need no bait to appear.

Checked 2026-08-25 · Source

Where it is

• 1 hr 30 min

  6 min walk · เขตจตุจักร

  Queen Sirikit Park

  • Must see
  • Nature site
• 2 hours

  7 min walk · เขตจตุจักร

  Wachirabenchathat Park

  • Must see
  • Nature site
• 1 hr 30 min

  10 min walk · เขตจตุจักร

  Children's Discovery Museum

  • High
  • Museum

External links

• Official site
• View on Wikidata